PUNCH and Judy fought for a pie,
Punch gave Judy a blow in the eye;
Says Punch to Judy, ‘Will you have more?’
Says Judy to Punch, ‘No, my eye is too sore.’
Traditionally performed at seaside towns and other holiday resorts, although also making appearances at country fairs and markets, Punch and Judy shows originated in Italy during the early part of the seventeenth century. It was the commedia dell’arte who first introduced the character Punchinello to their popular street theatre.
The first appearance of Mr Punch was in England on 9 May 1662 (considered by enthusiasts to be his official birthday), introduced by Italian puppeteer Signor Bologna, and the anarchic comedy character was an immediate success. Soon afterwards, the diarist Samuel Pepys watched a performance in Covent Garden, London, and noted ‘an Italian puppet play… which is very pretty. The best I have ever seen and a great resort of gallants.’
In the British version of the show, the cast usually consists of Punch, his wife Judy (originally called ‘Joan’), their baby, a crocodile, a policeman and a string of sausages. Dressed in a jester’s costume, Punch strikes a distinctive figure with his hunchback and grotesquely hooked nose. The storyline 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). Knockdown comedy has remained wildly popular ever since (show an audience a character being beaten about with a frying pan or other such implement and they’ll laugh their heads off) and the stick that Punch wields so freely is in fact thought to provide the origin of the term ‘slapstick’.
When the puppets hit each other, it’s like the violence in a cartoon – indeed, Punch and Judy probably taught Tom and Jerry a trick or two – and they always bounce back. In this rhyme the fighting has a serious aftermath, however. Hence the poem may well have been composed with a moral purpose – an early version of ‘Don’t try this at home, kids!’