AT the May meeting of the Andover History and Archaeology Society, held in the Guildhall, the society’s members were entertained as well as enlightened by Alix Booth, a professional Punch and Judy performer, on the history of their puppet plays.
Mr Punch is far older than most people realise. On 9 May 1662 Samuel Pepys recorded seeing an Italian puppet play in Covent Garden which is thought to have featured Punchinello from whom he is derived; puppeteers still keep that date as Mr Punch’s birthday. In England he soon became the rascally Mr Punch, forever fighting both his wife and officialdom as well as the devil and all his works. Originally these puppet plays were welcomed in churches but in time their comic element became too boisterous to be acceptable, so Mr Punch was forced to perform in the market place instead. There he was free to satirise all manner of people and contemporary situations.
On her traditional puppet stage Alix Booth had Mr Punch dealing with one character after another from his repertoire, usually with the vigorous use of his stick. There was poor Judy of course (and later her ghost), Pretty Poll his girlfriend,Toby the dog (originally an actual dog rather than a puppet), Joseph Grimaldi the clown, the crocodile eating the string of sausages, the policeman and then the hangman — his fatal demonstration of how to put one’s head in the noose was greeted with the same laughter that it has always produced at the end of a Punch and Judy show. Towards the end of Victorian times Punch and Judy shows started to decline in popularity. However, Mr Punch went off to perform at the newly popular seaside beaches, where he quickly became a welcome part of the scene for visitors arriving by train at bank holidays and other times.
Mr Punch in person (impossible to think of him as a glove puppet) was the star of the evening. However, Alix finished by showing various slides to show his development from Italian and French Punchinello characters, as well as later cartoons and other illustrations of the well loved shows.
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