Yet at the same time, these performances offered children clues to the limits of appropriate Victorian female behavior and the power of male violence to enforce them.
JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. Punch and Judy by George Cruikshank, By: Livia Gershon. September 15, September 9, Share Tweet Email Print. Weekly Newsletter. Have a correction or comment about this article? But versions of the show were also to be found in pantomimes, the music hall, at private parties and at almost any large public gathering. During this period, the names of several families became associated with the show.
The Smith family in particular had branches in many resorts; the Baileys were at Buxton and Harrogate; there were the Jessons, the Maggs, the Greens, and the Codmans played in both Liverpool and Llandudno. In the 20th century, the arrival of the motor car made street performances increasingly difficult. By the end of the 20th century, this had declined to no more than twelve. Nonetheless, the show has never lost its popularity. Following publication of the first script in , a variety of books and ephemera have appeared.
The growth of new media has provided further opportunities. Since the 18th century there have been various stage productions with Punch played by actors, dancers and opera singers. He has also appeared numerous times in literature. The first attempt at forming a society of Punch men was made by Oscar Oswald in In , both organizations are still active. Other festivals dedicated to Punch are also organized around the country by the Fellowship and the College.
Of the families connected with the show in the Victorian era, the Greens, Jessons, Smiths, Carcass, Codmans and Maggs continued into the 20th century, with the Codmans and the Maggs still active in the early years of the 21st. During the 20th century, many other showmen came to prominence, the most famous being Percy Press I. Others have resisted this, however, regarding such attempts as an erosion of the tradition.
Today there are over a hundred professors, men and women, who regularly perform the show. Its future lies, literally, in their hands, as long as they have the wit, skill and tenacity that Punch demands. Fiche technique Gallery.
Glove puppets, height: 50 c m. Country United Kingdom. Glove puppets. Pun c h and Judy College of Professors May About this time, Punch's wife name changed from "Joan" to "Judy. Later Victorian booths, particularly those used for Christmas parties and other indoor performances, were gaudier affairs.
In the 20th century, however, red-and-white-striped puppet booths became iconic features on the beaches of many English seaside and summer holiday resorts. Such striped cloth is the most common covering today, wherever the show might be performed.
Originally intended for adults, the show evolved into primarily a children's entertainment in the late Victorian era. Ancient members of the show's cast, like the Devil and Punch's mistress "Pretty Polly," ceased to be included when they came to be seen as inappropriate for young audiences.
The term "pleased as Punch" is derived from Punch and Judy; specifically, Mr. Punch's characteristic sense of gleeful self-satisfaction. The story changes, but some phrases remain the same for decades or even centuries: for example, Punch, after dispatching his foes each in turn, still squeaks his famous catchphrase: "That's the way to do it!! They can now be seen at carnivals, festivals, birthday parties, and other celebratory occasions. The characters in a Punch and Judy show are not fixed as in a Shakespeare play, for instance.
They are similar to the cast of a soap opera or a folk tale like Robin Hood. While the principal characters must appear, the lesser characters are included at the discretion of the performer. New characters may be added as the tradition evolves, and older characters dropped. Along with Punch and Judy, the cast of characters usually includes their baby, a hungry crocodile, a clown, an officious policeman, and a prop string of sausages.
The cast of a typical Punch and Judy show today will include:. Other characters included Boxers, Chinese Plate Spinners, topical figures, a trick puppet with an extending neck the "Courtier" and a monkey. A live Dog Toby which sat on the playboard and performed 'with' the puppets was once a regular featured novelty routine. There is no one definitive "story" of Punch and Judy. Collier, however, in the words of Speaight, is someone of whom "the full list of his forgeries has not yet been reckoned, and the myths he propagated are still being repeated.
His 'Punch and Judy' is to be warmly welcomed as the first history of puppets in England, but it is also sadly to be examined as the first experiment of a literary criminal. Nonetheless, the skeletal outline is often recognizable. It typically involves Punch behaving outrageously, struggling with his wife Judy and the Baby, and then triumphing in a series of encounters with the forces of law and order and often the supernatural , interspersed with jokes and songs. As performed currently in the UK a typical show will start with the arrival of Mr.
This may have been performed by Anthony Devoto, who we know had a puppet show at Bartholomew Fair London's pre-eminent summer fair held in the Smithfield area and at Charing Cross in , , and Polichinello was the subversive, thuggish character whose Italian name Pulcinella or Pulliciniello eventually anglicised to Punch may have developed from the word pulcino, or chick, referring to the character's beak-like mask and squeaky voice.
Punch and his ancestors always had a ridiculous voice. His characteristic voice originally came from the use of a reed placed at the back of the Punchman's or 'professor's' mouth. In Britain the reed is called a swazzle, and in France a sifflet-pratique. Originally swazzles were made from bone or ivory; today they are made from tin.
But whatever the material, each was equally tricky to master and easy to swallow. Punch made himself at home in Britain during the 18th century, where he became a celebrity, disrupting the action in puppet plays in theatres and fairground booths throughout the country. Punch was a leading character in the marionette shows of Martin Powell d. Powell had a marionette theatre in Bath in which featured performances by Punch and Joan as today's Judy was then known. By Powell was performing in London, in St.
Martin's Lane, in a room adapted as a puppet theatre, and in he moved to the Seven Stars, a tavern in Covent Garden where his plays were performed with elaborate scenery and candle footlights.
Punch did not yet star in his own play but featured in a variety of Powell's performances. Whatever the story, it was customary for Punch to fight the Devil. Sometimes the Devil won but usually it was Punch that was victorious. Punch became such a popular character that when Samuel Foote staged a puppet show at the Haymarket Theatre on 15 February , featuring real actors with strings attached and a notable absence of Punch, the audience in the upper gallery revolted, tearing up the benches on the opening night.
Punch had a marionette theatre named after him in when the actress and puppeteer Charlotte Charke — 60 was granted a license to open Punch's Theatre in James Street, off the Haymarket in London. Her cast of costumed wooden puppets would perform satirical marionette plays with Punch as the novelty character performing roles such as Falstaff, or dancing with his wife Joan. The enterprise though was short-lived with Charke forced to sell the marionettes.
As Charke had discovered, marionette shows were expensive to produce and by the end of the 18th century glove puppet versions of the Punch show, performed in small portable booths became a familiar sight on city streets and country lanes instead.
While Punch integrated himself in Britain a similar process took place in other parts of Europe, resulting in Punch's European cousins including Kasperle in Southern Germany and Austria, Polichinelle in France, and further afield, Karakoz in Turkey and Petrushka in Russia.
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