That's the way to do it,.....
or it was in the golden seaside days.
A holiday at the seaside used to be incomplete without a Punch and Judy show. Every resort, large or small had one. But now Mr. Punch's robust knock-about humour has vanished from many beaches and some children have never even seen one. "Too violent; you can't have people throwing babies about like that," wail the critics, but Punch and Judy survive in the hands of a few entertainers, more likely to appear at private parties than on the prom.
And are the puppet characters really as bad as all that? Not according to Mr. Billy Norman, Hayling Island's Punch and Judy man for many years. "I think it is a morality play really. Mr. Punch is a pretty dreadful character but in my show he repents in the end, after dreaming that the devil is coming for him. The real hero is Joey the Clown."
Billy sticks pretty close to the traditional stow. but the trouble is no one can be sure how the original story went. Glove puppets were recorded as far back as the 14th Century, and a Punch-like character features in many European puppet plays, an outrageous figure, anti-authority, selfish and violent. The English Mr. Punch is believed to be Italian in origin. and Samuel Pepys's diary recorded that Punch first appeared in the Covent Garden district of London in 1662, where his 300th birthday was celebrated on May 26, 1962. The Punch script was first recorded in 1827, by John Payne Collier, a journalist, with sketches by artist George Cruikshank and published by Edward Prowett.
Their subject was Giovanni Piccini, who lived in a "low" public house in Drury Lane coalyard. Piccini, by then quite elderly and with weakness for drink, was said to gave been performing for 40 or 50 sears. He performed for them, and hey stopped the show at suitable points for Cruikshank to sketch, while Collier took notes. The accuacy of Collier's version of the puppet play was later questioned, but its account is still the best available. In this play Mr. Punch was quite outrageous - he even overcame the devil in the end.
In other versions, perhaps reflecting Victorian standards or earlier religous-based glove puppet shows, Mr. Punch goes to the devil like all wicked folk. In Billy Norman's how, the devil appears to Punch in dream which shocks the old rogue o much that he swears to Joey the "lows he has ended his wicked ways.
Another part he includes only at special request is the hangman cene, said to have been based on
Jack Ketch, one of England's most notorious executioners. In this scene the hangman comes to despatch Punch but the wily hunchback with the big hooter tricks the hangman into demonstrating to him how the noose works - and Punch hangs the hangman. All gruesome stuff from the years when public taste was bloodthirsty and bawdy in the extreme, and antiestablishment satire was received with delight - a tradition which continues to this day in the sophisticated puppetry of television's "Spitting Image."
The bulk of Billy's show is very much as it was passed down to him by a well-known local performer, Vie Taylor, whose father had a Punch and Judy show before him. A Londoner. Billy and his parents used to holiday at Hayling Island, and Billy became fascinated with Vac's Punch and Judy Show on the beach. "I used to follow him around and I got to know the show by heart. My mother, Ethel, asked him where I could get a set of figures and he agreed to carve a set for me. This he did, and when he died he instructed that his other two sets of figures should be given to me, plus his ventriloquist's doll, Sammy. Some of them were his father's and are now over 100 years old. I still use them. Vic told me he carved Mr. Punch from an old boxwood mangle roller and that he would be tough enough to stand a lot of knocking about. He certainly has!"
Vic believed the show originated in the East, and in Italy the script was based on a real-life drama known as Pulchinello. He was a hunchback who cared nothing for law and order, beat his wife to death, knocked a policeman about, and threw his baby out of the window - a villain through and
through. Vic cut out most of the grim material and Billy followed his example. Vic believed a Royal Charter was still in force which permitted Punch and Judy to be performed any time in any side street for 20 minutes.
"Vic had a real Punch and Judy Show, with a wonderful dog Toby, which he had trained himself. He had a marvellous front man - we call them 'bottlers' - to do the collecting, Captain Kettle had flamboyant trousers, banged the drum and played the pipes of pan.
"Vic knew I was keen and he taught me and let me into the secrets of Punch. Most Punch and Judy men were very secretive about this, and I was very privileged really. He showed me how to make and use a swazzle, the reed with which we make Mr. Punch's highpitched voice. I used to make mine from a flattened piece of silver
spoon with a tape across the middle, but I can do the voice without a swazzle. My grandfather made me a folding booth, a fit-up as they were called, and I have used it ever since."
Vic Taylor wrote a book about his life ("Reminiscences of a Showman," Allen Lane, the Penguin Press) in which he refers to the value of a good "bottler". He was so pleased with Captain Kettle's efforts that he went halves with him in the takings of their show at Hayling, though the more usual bottler's share was fourpence in the shilling. Mr. Taylor, who died in 1982, was a magician and entertainer as well as Punch and Judy man, later taking over a Havant pub called The Speed the Plough from his fatherin-law. Mr. A. Funnell. Many is the time that Vic sawed his wife in half, but it did her no harm - she is still living in Havant.
Billy, now 67 and living in a wooden bungalow at Hayling crammed with mementoes of a busy life in show-business, has been an entertainer since the age of 12, when he joined a Christmas children's show put on at the Ambassador's Theatre, London. It was a big hit and extended for quite a few weeks. Later the show went on tour and Billy's mother was wardrobe mistress. An Eric Von Stroheim film inspired Billy to become a ventriloquist. with the act Billy and Norman. He became known as Billy Norman and the name stuck - his real surname is Hawkins.
He has worked with two dummies. Vic's doll Sammy, beautifully made with realistic moving mouth, flapping ears, rolling eyes and lifting eyebrows, and Oscar, a more complicated figure with remote controls. As a lad he also became one of the Ovaltinies, whose voices
were popular on Radio Luxemburg, and toured with their show.
When war came and he joined the R.A.F.. Oscar went along too. "I became part of a concert party and we performed all over the place. Oscar certainly helped me have an an easy time in the R.A.F. I entertained American airmen as well, and they treated Oscar like a real person, buying him drinks. The Americans were almost childlike at times and they were very good audiences."
Billy later also ran his own band and played the organ and the Hawaiian guitar. For 17 years he was resident at Pontins Holiday Camp at Bracklesham Bay in West Sussex. His parents moved to Hayling Island just before the war, and after the conflict Billy had the Punch and Judy rights at Hayling, giving up to seven shows a day on the beach.
"My mother was my bottler and she was very good at it. She also kept the puppets in good repair. In those days if we worked hard we could make a living out of it. Mum would collect up to £2 a show and if we did plenty of shows we could make enough money to see us through the winter. I did other entertaining as well and for a time my father and I also ran a small poster printing business. Some people may think it was a strange life, but we enjoyed it. I remember once on the beach the tide came in higher than we expected and I finished the show with the sea up to my ankles.
"I am sorry the old beach shows ended, but people don't think about inflation and would still give the sort of money they used to, so you couldn't make a living out of it. Nowadays I get bookings for parties, fetes etc., and I have done quite a few shows for the Navy sailors make good audiences. The
shows last from 20 to 45 minutes
and I have up to 14 characters to
call on.
"It is hard to explain, but when
you are in the fit-up with your arms above your head, looking up, the figures seem to come to life on your hands. They are definite characters and seem to take over. Although it is hard work - some of the figures are quite heavy - I never feel tired during the show.
"The reaction of children today is much the same as it always was, some get really involved. I had to change the scene where Punch throws out the baby - I lost so many babies because children were so protective they wouldn't throw them back. Now Punch throws the baby within the fit-up. What has always amazed me is that in all these years I have been doing the show not one child has asked me why the figures' lips don't move. I remember one day I was repairing the crocodile and it was left out of the show - what a fuss the children made about that. They love the crocodile and the sausages.
"Punch and Judy is as popular as it ever was, but not all the exponents are as skilled as some of the older ones. Vic used to be very good at it, and he was a great all-round entertainer. I was never able to get the knack of juggling spinning plates and some Punch and Judy men were brilliant at that. One of the best Punch and Judy men I saw was Tom Kemp, who performed under the West Pier at Brighton. I saw his act during the war and he put Hitler in - you can imagine the cheers when Mr. Punch knocked him about with the slap-stick."
In the fit-up the dolls hang upside down on ropes stretched around the sides so that the operator can change a character by simply diving his hand into the glove, sticking his forefinger into a hole bored into the head and second finger and thumb going into the figure's arms. Like many Punch and Judy men, Billy likes to keep the inside of his booth secret, preserving the magic for children, but he made an exception for one famous entertainer. "I have always wanted to look inside a Punch and Judy," Tommy Trinder told him after watching his show, and he was allowed to have a peep.
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