There is something which is popular and still poor. There is something that is successful and yet bankrupt. There is a drama before the public which the public always applauds. It has run for a million nights and still it does not pay. That is a case for municipal enterprise. I propose that Punch and Judy should be put on the rates.
I have heard the oddest things said about Punch by literary men. I have heard him called Pagan. I have heard him degraded to the level of the Superman. Surely, however, it is obvious that Punch is the most Christian of all possible figures. Punch is Christian because Punch is grotesque.
The one thing that we have all forgotten about Mr Punch is the one thing that our fathers made most prominent — his hump. The victories of Punch are, indeed, the victories of a violent person, but they are the victories of a hunchback. That is, they are the victories of a grotesque cripple. No human being of any imagination ever took the smallest interest in the victories of the strong. It is only the victories of the weak that can be interesting. And all the victories, almost literally without exception, which humanity has celebrated at all, have been the victories of the weak — the weak in size, as in Jack the Giant-killer; or in numbers as at Marathon or Thermopylae; or in station and obvious chances, as in Cinderella or modern socialism; or in bodily defect, as in the blind Samson or the hump-backed Punch.
There are, indeed, human stories like that of Samson, of a man stronger than any other individual man. But there are no stories of this strong man conquering another weaker man and exulting in his strength … Strong as he is, his enemy must be stronger than he. And this is obviously the real meaning of Mr Punch. The whole point of the drama is that one highly ridiculous person with a hump is a match for all the organized forces of society, including the Beadle and the Hangman. The emphasis is not on the fact that he claims victory or has a right to expect it; the point is that he does not expect the victory, but does get it. The whole point of the story is that of a forlorn hope. The whole point is not that Punch puts his foot down, but that he has his back to the wall …
But the moral claim of Punch and Judy, though obvious, is not its only claim. Artistically it represents something sadder than a lost art; it represents a frustrated art. The technical conception of the whole thing, that of managing a dolt with the thumb and two fingers, is exactly one of those direct arts that ought not to be allowed to die. It is probably as subtle as fencing, which is also chiefly managed by the thumb and forefinger. There must be men who can do it, undeservedly starving amongst men who cannot do it. The ragged English Punch and Judy is infinitely superior (on the first principles of art) to the elaborate and civilized Italian system of marionettes. Marionettes are mechanism, like mere trains and telephones. Punch and Judy is manual labour; it is in a strict sense handicraft. The man works this thing — works it by personal and vital gestures — as if he were himself the actor. It is his own right hand that has become to him a separate person. It is his right hand that has lost or has not lost its cunning. It is his right hand that has taught him terrible things. And when he lifts the three fingers that make a doll into a man, he is lifting the same three fingers that all High Pontiffs have lifted in benediction.
If Punch and Judy is permitted to die, there will die with it three things. First, a genuine historic survival of the old Christian farce, in which the clown or fool always had the best of everybody. Secondly, there will die a definite mode of dexterity; one which could be applied to a hundred other hearty pantomimes besides this of Punch and Judy. Thirdly, it will mean the disappearance of a great pleasure of the poor.
Daily News, October 26th, 1907
The art of the Punch and Judy show, like the art of the old guilds, is a handicraft. It is that low thing called manual labour, like the work of the sculptor, the violinist and the painter of the Transfiguration. The interest of it lies in the fact that the only instrument really employed is the hand, and the costume of the comic figure is merely a kind of glove. Everything is done with these three fingers, or rather two fingers and a thumb, with which, in fact, all the mightiest or most ingenious works of man have been done. Everything turns on the co-operation of that trinity of digits: the pen, the pencil, the bow of the violin, and even the foil or the sword. In this respect Punch and Judy has a purity and classical simplicity as a form of art, superior even to what is more commonly called the puppet show — the more mechanical system of marionettes that work on wires. And there is this final touch of disgrace in the neglect of it: that while marionettes are mostly a foreign amusement, Punch has become a purely English survival. It is very English, it is really popular, it is within the reach of comparatively poor men. Who can wonder that it is dying out?
Illustrated London News, October 8th, 1921
