While the Punch and Judy show has roots in the Italian commedia dell'arte, where the traditional figure of Pulcinello first appeared, it's in practice one of those irreducibly British cultural practices. I kind of have a feeling that this was one of those things I tried talking to my friends about when I was a kid and pretty much got blank stares. I'm not British but I sort of had that background, and they didn't.
Notice that in this instance the puppeteer uses his natural, very masculine voice for Judy. This could be either to downplay the domestic violence which is surely in the offing or just to give his own larynx a break.
2 comments:
What I do remember about Punch and Judy shows is that Punch hit everybody - his wife, the baby, the policeman, and anybody else who showed up on the stage. He always got taken away by the policeman at the end to the riotous delight of the children watching. It's too bad your friends didn't get to see any of the shows because they were as over the top as things can get and the kids always knew Punch was naughty.
Considering how much hysteria has been attached to what kids are allowed to see it wouldn't surprise me to learn that P&J performances have been stopped by the UK government. After hundreds of years of hilarious mayhem it would be sad to think of Punch in permanent exile.
Well it certainly does seem classier for kids to see a puppet acting out like that than a guy in a trailer park doing the same thing on Cops. You know the story, though. America has English roots, but settled in a wilderness an ocean away when that actually meant something. Settled by Puritans or Puritanesque people at that. Then industrialized in a hurry. So it was inevitable some traditions would fall away.
The political and social scene might be different in the UK, possibly more restrictive in some ways. Still, this tradition does at least have some adherents still.
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