MANY YEARS AGO I WAS WORKING IN SPAIN  and one evening my wife telephoned to say that my friend John Styles, possibly Britain’s leading Punch and Judy worker, had called. It seems he had been booked to present the ages-old entertainment by a local council but that an objection had been raised by a ladies guild  stating that the entertainment should not be shown as it included wife-beating and violence and was not suitable for children. A well-aired complaint. John had called me to see if I could help him with a reply which had been requested by the council.

I am not a Punch and Judy man and was in the middle of Spain but I sat down and composed the following essay based on my inherent knowledge and common sense. Several workers have subsequently asked to have this as a reply to similar complaints which in many cases has resulted in the objection being withdrawn. For the common good I am happy to publish the essay again.

Punch and Judy are no Bonnie and Clyde

Punch and Judy is a 300 year-old theatrical, Italian fairy tale that depicts the light and shade of life that has entertained millions of children for three centuries without psychological harm or terror. In concert with all classic stories for the young it concludes with the triumph of good over evil when Punch is apprehended by the law.

That said, there is scant difference between the scenario of this quaint piece of children’s theatre, with its garish, colourful, wooden characters and squawking voices to the range of experiences described in classic, traditional tales for children like Grimm’s fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Rumpelstiltskin, The Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and many other stories All contain elements of villainy and heroism but children remain impervious to alleged psychological damage for such stories seek to show the highs and lows of life and all pointing the way to a moral conclusion.

If you compare these time-tested tales to the highly visual and audible children’s video games sold in millions as entertainment, that portray high speed violence against property and persons, it is not difficult to consider that acts of vandalism and crime by young people are more inspired by these contemporary blueprints than by the portrayal of a wooden figure, knocking his partner on the head with a stick, in the way that circus clowns right down to Laurel and Hardy have done for years.

Punch and Judy is pure, simple theatre based on a formula that is the basic ingredient of Opera or Shakespeare where the vagaries of life are presented in a way that entertains as well as moralises. Punch and Judy are no Bonnie and Clyde and in the current climate of gratuitous violence for the old and the young, they depict nothing more than an individuals misfortune – the man slipping on a banana skin, that has been the basis of comedy since Roman times.

John Derris – November 1999

Filed under: Magic Miscellanea, Magic Thoughts