COVENT GARDEN AND THE STORY
OF PUNCH AND JUDY
By Glyn Edwards
Glyn Edwards
What's the connection between Covent
Garden and Punch and Judy? Well, it starts 340 years ago
in May this year. On 9 May 1662 Samuel Pepys was coming back from
visiting a nearby ale-house when he stopped to watch a puppet show
that was performing in Covent Garden. It was the month that King
Charles II (recently restored to the throne) was getting married
and hordes of entertainers from all over Europe had thronged to
the city hoping to make some money. The Italian puppet play that
Pepys saw was presented by puppetmaster Pietro Gimonde - or 'Signor
Bologna' as he was known to his audience - and starred one of the
great comic characters of all time. The star puppet came originally
from Naples, where he was known as Pulcinella, then toured across
Europe to France - where he was called Polichinelle - and finally
came to captivate English audiences who settled for calling him
Punchinello. Pepys diary entry for 9 May reporting that he had seen
the show is taken by today's performers as marking Punch's 'birthday'.
It wasn't a Punch and Judy Show as we know it today: that developed
later. Punchinello was a marionette - a puppet on strings - whose
vulgar and boisterous antics pleased high and low alike. He appeared
in all manner of plays and frivolities and was copied by countless
English showmen who took him on the road touring the great English
Country Fair circuit which, in the days before container lorries
took produce to the supermarkets, was the way that goods (and entertainment)
came to the people. With his name shortened to Punch he became a
nationwide favourite. Performed by a troupe of puppeteers on a stage
within a fairground tent, the shows were different in style to the
ones we are familiar with today. Punch's role was to dominate whatever
play he was set within (not unlike the Marx Bros unleashed within
their 'Night at the Opera') and even the sight of his big nose poking
round the edge of the scenery was enough to set the audience off
laughing. This phase of his career lasted for almost hundred years
until in the mid 1700s it all changed and someone cut Punch's strings.
Was it because the Fairground circuit was losing customers to the
newly springing up towns and cities of the Industrial Age? Was it
because another Italian puppeteer came to England and showed a different
way of presenting the show? Historians argue about the reasons,
but whatever they were they led Punch to change into the hand puppet
we know today, to take a wife called Judy (Punchinello's wife was
called Joan) and to star in a show performed by one person in a
small puppet stage. Forsaking the fairgrounds he became a street
entertainer who passed the hat round rather than charging admission.
Re-inventing himself in this way Punch became a hit all over again.
The early 1800's were the years when the modern Punch and Judy
Show tradition was forged. It was the great era of pantomime at
Saddlers Wells, which is where Punch both 'borrowed' his slapstick
from Harlequin and also added Joey the Clown to the cast in homage
to his immortal contemporary Joey Grimaldi. Charles Dickens was
a young man at the time and developed a life long passion for Punch,
including him in several of his works. A group of young radical
humourists wanted a street-cred name for the new magazine they were
founding and so called it 'Punch' and a few decades later - with
the invention of the railway and the beginning of day excursions
- Punch went to the seaside and made himself such a fixture that
people often forget that his roots were far away from the sand and
donkey rides. This madcap little entertainment with its powerful
undertones has lasted right up to today and shows no signs of running
out of steam.
Mr Punch's birthday celebrations, 1987
If you look on the portico of St Paul's Church, to the left behind
the street entertainers, you will see a plaque put up in 1962 at
the instigation of George Speaight - the man who wrote the definitive
history of the English puppet theatre - to mark the 300th anniversary
of Pepys 'discovering' Punchinello. I was the youngest Punch 'Prof'
(as we call ourselves) at the unveiling ceremony: done at a time
when Covent Garden was still a thriving fruit and vegetable market.
It was a large gathering of performers and featured a birthday cake
and a giant stage that we all performed inside. It impressed me
so much that 25 years later in 1987 I organised a similar event
to mark the passing of a quarter of a century and to celebrate Mr
Punch's 325th 'birthday'. Some 150 Profs attended - along with many
of Punch's overseas relatives. A photograph of the event was featured
in the Guinness Book or Records in 1990 - and I'm looking forward
to being back ten years from now to attend his 350th.
Meanwhile Mr Punch is flourishing as he always has done. You'll
find good shows, bad shows, average shows and superb shows - all
depending on the skills of whoever is inside the puppet theatre.
His history is long and varied and he is known around the world.
He has relatives in very many cultures - probably in every culture
where there are people upon whom authority sits (be it in the shape
of a dictator or a traffic warden) - and thus he is unlikely to
fade away in the foreseeable future. If you want to know more about
him, then Profs invite you to visit his many websites. As he himself
says "That's the way to do it!"
Glyn Edwards
Councillor: The Punch & Judy College of Professors
For more information on Punch and Judy visit www.punchandjudy.org
PHOTO GALLERY
For more photos of street entertainers in Covent Garden click here.
MORE ARTICLES
Regular Covent Garden performer Andy Wood gives us his 'View from the Piazza': 123
Mr Punch arrived in Covent Garden 340 years ago. Glyn Edwards tells his story: click here
Rex Boyd, originally from Kansas, USA, has spent a lot of time at Covent Garden off and on since 1988.
Click here to read his story.
