Punch and Judy
Based on Wikipedia: Punch and Judy
There's a puppet show where a hook-nosed man beats his wife, drops his baby, wallops a policeman with a stick, and—if the audience is lucky—cheats the hangman out of his own noose. The crowd roars with laughter. Children shriek with delight. And this has been happening, in various forms, for over three hundred and sixty years.
Welcome to Punch and Judy.
The Most Subversive Thing at the Beach
If you've ever visited an English seaside resort—think Brighton, Blackpool, or Weymouth—you may have noticed a curious red-and-white striped booth, about the size of a phone box stood on end. From inside this booth emerges a cacophony of squeaks, thwacks, and children yelling "He's behind you!" This is the Punch and Judy show, and despite its cheerful seaside associations, it's essentially a celebration of gleeful anarchic violence that has somehow become a beloved national institution.
The Daily Telegraph once called it "a staple of the British seaside scene." The London Museum labeled it "an English entertainment icon." But what Punch and Judy really represents is something far stranger: a centuries-old tradition where audiences—originally adults, now mostly children—gather to watch a cackling hunchback commit acts that would land any real person in prison for life.
And they love every minute of it.
Born from Puritan Misery
To understand why Punch exists, you need to understand what England was like in the mid-1600s. Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan government had made fun essentially illegal. Theaters were shuttered in 1642. Street entertainers were thrown in jail. The official position was that entertainment was sinful, and the English people were expected to be miserable about it in a godly sort of way.
Then, in 1660, everything changed. King Charles II took the throne, the Puritans were out, and suddenly people were absolutely desperate for entertainment. They'd been starved of it for nearly two decades.
Into this void stepped a character who was, in many ways, the perfect antidote to Puritan repression. On May 9th, 1662—a date still celebrated as Punch's "birthday" in the United Kingdom—a diarist named Samuel Pepys recorded seeing something remarkable in Covent Garden. An Italian puppeteer named Pietro Gimonde, performing under the stage name "Signor Bologna," was putting on a marionette show featuring a character called Pulcinella.
Pepys described it simply as "an Italian puppet play, that is within the rails there, which is very pretty."
Pretty. That's one word for it.
From Naples to Nottingham
Pulcinella wasn't invented by Signor Bologna. He was a stock character from the Italian commedia dell'arte tradition—a form of theatrical performance that relied on recognizable character types rather than scripted dialogue. Think of it as improvisational theater with recurring cast members. There was always a scheming servant, a pompous doctor, a pair of young lovers, and so on.
Pulcinella was the troublemaker. He was hook-nosed, hunchbacked, dressed as a clown, and absolutely incorrigible. In Naples, where he originated, he represented a kind of gleeful defiance of authority—the little guy who refuses to follow the rules and somehow always comes out on top.
The English took one look at this character and decided he was perfect. They anglicized his name to "Punchinello" and eventually shortened it to just "Punch." They gave him a wife—originally named Joan, later changed to Judy for reasons I'll explain shortly. And they transformed him from a character who said outrageous things into a character who did outrageous things.
One historian put it beautifully: Punch became "a spirit of Britain—a subversive maverick who defies authority, a kind of puppet equivalent to our political cartoons."
The Voice of Chaos
If you've ever heard Mr. Punch speak, you'll never forget it. He has a distinctive squawking voice—somewhere between a kazoo and a deranged parrot—that sounds like nothing else on earth. This isn't an affectation. It's the result of a small device called a swazzle (sometimes spelled "swatchel") that the puppeteer holds in their mouth while performing.
The swazzle is essentially a tiny reed instrument. When the performer speaks through it, their voice comes out as that characteristic Punch squeak. It's so central to the tradition that there's genuine controversy in Punch and Judy circles about whether a show without a swazzle can even be considered a real Punch and Judy show.
Here's the thing, though: only Punch uses the swazzle. All the other characters speak normally. This means the performer—traditionally called a "professor" or "punchman"—has to constantly switch between swazzled and non-swazzled speech while keeping the device in their mouth. It's a remarkable bit of puppetry technique that's been passed down for centuries.
The swazzle is also why Punch's wife is now called Judy instead of Joan. Try saying "Joan" with a small metal device wedged against your soft palate. Now try "Judy." Much easier, isn't it?
From Strings to Fists
The original Punch shows were marionette performances—puppet theaters where the figures dangled from strings, manipulated from above. These were elaborate productions. Martin Powell, one of the most famous early Punch showmen, ran a proper "Punch's Theatre" in Covent Garden during the early 1700s that attracted substantial crowds. There was even a Punch puppet theater in Dublin that ran for decades.
But marionettes have a problem. They're expensive. They're cumbersome to transport. They require large spaces to perform in—empty halls, the back rooms of taverns, big tents at country fairs. And crucially, when you're doing a show that's fundamentally about one character hitting other characters with a big stick, strings get in the way.
By the late 1700s, the glove puppet had taken over. Instead of dangling from strings, Punch now fitted over the performer's hand—thumb in one arm, middle and ring fingers in the other, index finger in the head. This format allowed for much more vigorous physical comedy. Punch could really wallop someone now.
The glove puppet also meant the show could travel. A single performer with a narrow, lightweight booth could set up on any street corner, give a quick show, collect money, and move on. You might see half a dozen Punch and Judy shows in different parts of London on any given day.
The Plot, Such As It Is
Describing the "plot" of a Punch and Judy show is a bit like describing the "plot" of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Things happen, violence ensues, and somehow the same characters are back for more next time.
But there are certain elements that audiences expect. A scholar named Glyn Edwards compared it to the Cinderella story—there are parts you simply can't leave out. Punch must mishandle the baby (sitting on it, dropping it, or in some versions putting it through a sausage machine). Punch and Judy must quarrel and fight. A policeman must arrive and get a taste of Punch's stick. There must be a series of encounters with various adversaries, all of whom Punch defeats. And there must be a final confrontation with some ultimate threat—the hangman, the devil, a crocodile, or a ghost.
The crocodile is a particularly beloved element. Somewhere around the mid-1800s, a hungry crocodile became a standard Punch and Judy character, usually appearing in pursuit of a string of sausages. The audience, seeing the crocodile sneaking up behind Punch, will shout to warn him. "He's behind you!" they cry, and Punch will look in the wrong direction, and the crocodile will creep closer, and the children will scream louder, and eventually there will be a magnificent puppet scuffle.
This call-and-response—the audience actively participating in the show—is fundamental to the experience. It's interactive theater centuries before anyone coined that term.
That's the Way to Do It
Every time Punch successfully dispatches an enemy, he lets out his famous catchphrase: "That's the way to do it!" It's delivered in that unmistakable swazzle squawk, accompanied by his characteristic cackle. The phrase is so embedded in English culture that most people who use it don't even realize they're quoting a puppet show about domestic violence and casual assault.
Similarly, the expression "pleased as Punch" comes directly from the show. It refers to Mr. Punch's characteristic expression of gleeful self-satisfaction after doing something terrible. When you say you're "pleased as Punch," you're invoking a figure who would be pleased after beating up a policeman.
Language is funny that way.
The Trickster's Many Faces
Mr. Punch belongs to a category of character that appears in mythologies and folklore across the entire world: the Trickster. This is a figure who operates outside normal social rules, who defies authority, who uses cunning (and often violence) to get what he wants, and who audiences find strangely sympathetic despite—or perhaps because of—his terrible behavior.
You can see the Trickster in Loki from Norse mythology, in Anansi from West African and Caribbean folklore, in Coyote from Native American traditions, in the Monkey King from Chinese literature. All of them share certain qualities: they're clever, they're chaotic, they break rules, and they're almost impossible to permanently defeat.
Punch fits this pattern perfectly. He's also connected to another old tradition: the Lord of Misrule, a figure from medieval English festivities who was appointed to preside over chaos during holiday celebrations. For a brief period, normal social order was inverted, rules were suspended, and disorder reigned. Then the festival ended and everyone went back to normal life.
Watching Punch and Judy is like a concentrated dose of that experience. For twenty minutes, you enter a world where a little hook-nosed man can beat up policemen, cheat death, and suffer no consequences whatsoever. Then the show ends, the booth closes up, and you return to a world where such behavior would land you in serious trouble.
There's something cathartic about it.
The Supporting Cast
While Punch is the star, he needs adversaries to fight and victims to abuse. Over the centuries, a supporting cast has evolved, though it varies from performer to performer.
The core characters you'll almost always see include Judy (the long-suffering wife), the Baby (the even more long-suffering infant), a Policeman (sometimes called Constable Jack), Joey the Clown (who provides comic relief in a show that's already absurdist comedy), and the Crocodile. Many shows include a Skeleton or Ghost for the finale, and some still feature the Doctor—a pompous figure who arrives to treat Punch's injuries, only to get walloped himself.
In older shows, you might encounter the Devil himself as Punch's final adversary. There's something almost medieval about this—the idea that a puppet show would end with the protagonist literally fighting Satan. The Devil and the Hangman (traditionally named Jack Ketch, after a famous real English executioner known for his brutal botched executions) represented genuine metaphysical stakes. Would Punch escape damnation? Would he cheat death?
Spoiler: he usually did.
Other characters have come and gone over the years. Pretty Polly was once Punch's mistress—a character that has quietly been dropped now that the shows are primarily for children. Toby the Dog was sometimes played by an actual living dog who would sit on the stage and interact with the puppets. Mr. Scaramouche and various servants appeared in older scripts. Some shows featured Chinese Plate Spinners, Boxers, or topical figures drawn from current events.
The cast is flexible because the show itself is flexible. There's no single canonical version. Each professor maintains their own tradition, adding and subtracting characters as they see fit.
The Professor's Craft
The puppeteer who performs a Punch and Judy show is traditionally called a "professor"—a title dating back to Victorian times that suggests a certain scholarly expertise in the art of puppet violence. The professor works inside the booth, invisible to the audience, manipulating the puppets above their head.
Originally, most professors worked with an assistant called a "bottler." The bottler's job was to gather a crowd, introduce the show, play accompanying music on drums or pan pipes, and collect money at the end—"the bottle." The bottler might also engage in banter with the puppets, helping to clarify dialogue that might be hard to understand (especially Punch's swazzled lines) and building audience engagement.
Today, most professors work solo. When Punch and Judy shifted from street performing to paid engagements at private parties and public events, the need for someone to corral crowds and collect impromptu donations became less important. The professor handles everything themselves—the voices, the puppetry, the swazzle, the timing, the crowd work.
It's a demanding skill that's passed down through apprenticeship and practice. There's a certain improvisation involved, too. The show has to respond to the audience. If the children are really into the crocodile scene, you might extend it. If they're getting restless, you move on. The professor reads the crowd while simultaneously operating puppets and speaking through a piece of metal in their mouth.
From Adults to Children
Here's something that might surprise you: Punch and Judy was not originally a children's entertainment. It was for adults.
The early shows were performed in taverns, at fairs, and on street corners for whoever wanted to watch. The humor was bawdy. Pretty Polly was Punch's mistress as well as his wife. The violence was not softened or stylized—it was the whole point. The Devil might appear as a serious supernatural antagonist. The hangman represented genuine capital punishment, which was very much a reality of 18th-century English life.
The transformation into a children's show happened gradually during the Victorian era. As middle-class sensibilities about childhood emerged—the idea that children needed to be protected from certain adult realities—the show was modified. Pretty Polly disappeared. The Devil became less common. The hangman, while still present in some versions, became optional. The whole affair became lighter, sillier, more of a knockabout farce than a dark comedy.
This migration from adult entertainment to children's entertainment has happened to a lot of things we now associate with childhood. Fairy tales, for instance, were originally stories for adults—and if you read the original versions of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, you'll find elements far too dark for the modern nursery. Punch followed a similar trajectory.
Some modern professors still perform "adults only" versions of the show, restoring some of the original edge. The question "Do you do the hanging?" is apparently one that performers hear regularly, referring to whether their version includes the gallows scene where Punch tricks the hangman into putting his own head in the noose.
The Only Script
In 1827, a remarkable document was created: the only surviving written script of a Punch and Judy performance. It was based on a show by a travelling performer named Giovanni Piccini, illustrated by the famous caricaturist George Cruikshank, and written down by a man named John Payne Collier.
This script has become an important historical record, but it comes with a massive asterisk. The performance had to be stopped constantly so that Collier and Cruikshank could write and sketch. It's not a natural performance captured in real-time; it's something reconstructed from a disrupted show.
And then there's the matter of Collier himself. In the words of one puppet historian, he was "someone of whom the full list of his forgeries has not yet been reckoned, and the myths he propagated are still being repeated." Collier was, not to put too fine a point on it, a known literary fraudster. His 1827 "Punch and Judy" is praised as "the first history of puppets in England" while also being described as "the first experiment of a literary criminal."
This is fitting, in a way. The only surviving script of Punch and Judy is of questionable authenticity. The show itself has always been improvisational, passed down through performance rather than text, changing constantly. Trying to pin down a definitive version is a bit like trying to catch smoke.
Why Do We Laugh?
Let's address the elephant in the puppet booth: this is a show about domestic violence, child abuse, and assault on public officials. Why do audiences—especially children—find it hilarious?
There are several theories. One is that the show is so obviously exaggerated and absurd that no one could possibly mistake it for reality. Punch is a grotesque caricature with a hooked nose that almost meets his jutting chin. The violence is accompanied by that ridiculous squeaky voice. The whole thing is wooden puppets in a striped booth—it's clearly not real.
Another theory draws on the Trickster tradition. There's something deeply satisfying about watching a figure who breaks all the rules and gets away with it. We spend our lives constrained by social expectations, laws, and consequences. Punch experiences none of that. He does whatever he wants and emerges triumphant. It's a fantasy of total freedom.
A third theory points to the cathartic function of violent entertainment. From Greek tragedy to modern action movies, audiences have always enjoyed watching terrible things happen in safe, contained contexts. The puppet booth is a frame that separates the violence from reality. Inside that frame, different rules apply.
And finally, there's simple slapstick physics. Things hitting other things is funny. It was funny when Buster Keaton did it, it was funny when the Three Stooges did it, it's funny when Punch does it with his big stick. The sound effects, the timing, the escalation—it's a formula that has worked for centuries because it taps into something fundamental about human humor.
The Seaside Tradition
If you visit certain English coastal towns today, you'll find Punch and Judy shows as regular attractions, as much a part of the seaside experience as fish and chips, donkey rides, and deck chairs. The red-and-white striped booth on the beach has become an iconic image of the British summer holiday.
This association dates back to the early 20th century, when seaside resorts became popular vacation destinations for working-class families. Beach entertainments sprang up to keep holidaymakers amused, and the portable Punch and Judy booth was perfect for the purpose. It could be set up on the sand, attract a crowd, put on a show, and pack up again.
The tradition became so strong that towns now actively maintain it. Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, for instance, holds an annual "Wis-BEACH day" each summer, specifically featuring Punch and Judy alongside other seaside traditions. The show has become heritage, something to be preserved and celebrated.
But seaside performances are no longer the only game in town. Punch and Judy now appears at carnivals, festivals, shopping centers, and birthday parties. Corporate events book Punch shows. Schools invite professors for educational sessions about traditional entertainment. The anarchic little hunchback has gone mainstream in ways his 17th-century creators could never have imagined.
A Living Tradition
One of the remarkable things about Punch and Judy is that it's still going. Three hundred and sixty-plus years after Samuel Pepys saw Signor Bologna's Pulcinella in Covent Garden, people are still performing versions of the same show. Children are still shouting "He's behind you!" at crocodiles. Punch is still squeaking "That's the way to do it!" through a swazzle.
The tradition changes, of course. The cast rotates. The social context shifts. What was once a street entertainment for adults became a Victorian children's show became a seaside attraction became a heritage activity. Each generation of professors adds their own variations, drops elements that no longer work, invents new bits of business.
But the core remains: a hook-nosed puppet with a big stick, a squeaky voice, and an absolute refusal to follow the rules. A figure who represents something eternal about human nature—the desire to break free, to defy authority, to cause chaos and somehow get away with it.
As one commentator put it, Punch survived the Puritans who would have banned him, the Victorians who sanitized him, and the modern sensibilities that might have canceled him. He's been called inappropriate, politically incorrect, unsuitable for children, and a bad influence. He doesn't care. He just hits things with his stick and cackles.
That's the way to do it.