How to Be English by David Boyle

Author:David Boyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473512375
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2015-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

THAT’S THE WAY to do it! Even these days, when Punch and Judy shows are comparatively rare, and even strings of sausages are a bit of a surprise, we understand where that injunction comes from. We also know it is spoken with a strange, raucous nasal voice, and with gusto and self-satisfaction, the very essence of the phrase ‘as pleased as Punch’.

There is something about Punch and Judy shows, with their casual murders and multiple brutalities, which English children seem to love – not to mention the policeman, the crocodile and the sausages. With its striped red and white booths, it almost smells of ice cream, jelly and the seaside.

But, like many English institutions, the origin of Mr Punch is actually Italian. He derives from the commedia dell’arte and the Italian Renaissance, a direct descendant of the character Pulcinella, and he owes as much to the presence of itinerant Italian players in the sixteenth century in London as to anything else. Samuel Pepys saw his first Punch and Judy show, thanks to an Italian called Pietro Gimonde, in Covent Garden on 9 May 1662. He described it as ‘an Italian puppet show’.

And at that stage, and throughout the raucous eighteenth century, Punch and Judy was indeed a marionette show. It was only in Victorian England that Punch became a glove puppet, which allowed him to wield his stick with even more ferocity. He also shifted his audience from adults to children. In fact, the more knockabout Punch became, the more he shifted to audiences who really appreciate that kind of humour.

At the same time, he also tended to lose some of his really dark fellow characters, like the Hangman and the Devil. Toby the Dog, who used to be played by a real dog in the original performances, has also tended to bow out.

The plot is variable and barely exists anyway beyond a number of encounters between Mr Punch and the law, and sometimes supernatural forces too. He is as outrageous as Don Giovanni, as violent as Dick Turpin, but he always wins through. No wonder he was as pleased as Punch. He fits neatly into the category of English rogues, with bizarre seventeenth-century dress and, perhaps also, a strong Italian accent.

Judy. Where’s the baby?

Punch. (In a melancholy tone.) I have had a misfortune; the child was so terrible cross, I throwed it out of the winder. (Lemontation of Judy for the loss of her dear child. She goes into asterisks, and then excites and fetches a cudgel, and commences beating Punch over the head.)

Punch. Don’t be cross, my dear: I didn’t go to do it.

Judy. I’ll pay yer for throwing the child out of the winder. (She keeps on giving him knocks of the head, but Punch snatches the stick away and commences an attack upon his wife, and beats her severely.)

Judy. I’ll go to the constable, and have you locked up.

From Henry Mayhew’s collected script (1851)

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