Hilarious Punch & Judy Show | Street Entertainment

Punch and Judy is a traditional puppet show featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Mr. Punch and one other character who usually falls victim to the intentional violence of Punch's slapstick. First appearing in England in 1662, The Daily Telegraph called Punch and Judy "a staple of the British seaside scene".[1] The various episodes of Punch comedy—often provoking shocked laughter—are dominated by the clowning of Mr. Punch.[2]

The show is performed by a single puppeteer inside the booth, known since Victorian times as a "professor" or "punchman", and assisted sometimes by a "bottler" who corrals the audience outside the booth, introduces the performance, and collects the money ("the bottle"). The bottler might also play accompanying music or sound effects on a drum or guitar, and engage in back chat with the puppets, sometimes repeating lines that may have been difficult for the audience to understand. In the Victorian era, the drum and pan pipes were the instruments of choice. Today, most professors work solo, since the need for a bottler became less important when street performing with the show gave way to paid engagements at private parties or public events. In modern shows the audience is encouraged to participate, calling out to the characters on the stage—typically shouting "He's behind you!"—to warn them of danger or clue them in to what is going on behind their backs.

The characters in a Punch and Judy show are not fixed. They are similar to the cast of a soap opera or a folk tale such as Robin Hood: the principal characters must appear, but the lesser characters are included at the discretion of the performer. New cast may be added and older cast dropped as the tradition changes.[citation needed]

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.[19] The devil and the generic hangman Jack Ketch may still make their appearances but, if so, Punch will always get the better of them. The cast of a typical Punch and Judy show today will include:

Mr. Punch
Judy
The Babe
The Constable (a.k.a. Policeman Jack)
Joey the Clown
The Crocodile
The Skeleton
The Doctor
Characters once regular but now occasional include:

Toby the Dog
The Ghost
The Lawyer
Hector the Horse
Pretty Polly
The Hangman (a.k.a. Jack Ketch)
The Devil
The Beadle
Jim Crow ("The Black Man")
Mr. Scaramouche
The Servant (or "The Minstrel")
The Blind Man

Much emphasis is often placed on the first printed script of Punch and Judy, in 1827. It was based on a show by travelling performer Giovanni Piccini, illustrated by George Cruikshank, and written by John Payne Collier. This is the only surviving script of a performance, and its accuracy is questioned. The performance was stopped frequently to allow Collier and Cruikshank to write and sketch and, in the words of Speaight, Collier 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.

The tale of Punch and Judy varies from puppeteer to puppeteer, as previously with Punchinello and Joan, and it has changed over time. 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.

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