LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Punch and Judy: Characters
built 264 days ago
The Punch and Judy show can trace its roots to the 16th century to the Italian commedia dell'arte. The figure of Punch derives from the stock character of Pulcinella, which was Anglicized to Punchinello. He is a manifestation of the Lord of Misrule and Trickster figures of deep-rooted mythologies. Punch's wife was originally "Joan".
Source:
Some years ago Harrison Birtwistle's opera Punch and Judy (1967) was produced for television. German artist George Baselitz did sets and costumes, and (taking cues from Birtwistle's wild music) he made the characters huge -- really huge -- marionettes, some 20 feet in size. Like the Punch and Judy of the popular British puppet shows, they remained dolls, but now they were horribly exaggerated: faces and features smattered with violently incisive pigment splotches, limbs and genitals garishly enlarged and ponderous. The sight offered a giddy gaggle of contradictions between the grotesque and the immaculately controlled (fulsome, heaving bodies caught in wire, stick and string) and between the new and old -- an electric abstract expressionism confused with the archaic savagery of a Greek satyr play. Things unremarkable in isolation and proper scope had suffered exaggeration, rigor, and fusion, and were now wonderfully sick, irreducibly strange.
Source:
Punch and Judy are characters in an English hand puppet show that first appeared in 1662. Punch, the main character (left), is an English buffoon who banters with his wife, Judy, who is characterized by a high-pitched, squeaky voice.
Source:
Despite Punch and Judy becoming renowned as a British cultural gem, historians believe it was originally based on characters from Italian folklore. The main character, Punch was allegedly based on the character Pulcinella from the Italian production Commedia Dell’arte.
Source:
May 9, 1662 is today traditionally reckoned by 'Professors' as Punch's UK birthday, for that was the first recorded date on which the figure who later became Mr. Punch was seen in England. The diarist Samuel Pepys observed a puppet show featuring an early version of the Punch character near St. Paul's Church in London's Covent Garden. It was performed by an Italian puppeteer, Pietro Gimonde operating as "Signor Bologna". Pepys described the event in his diary: "...an Italian puppet play, that is within the rails there, which is very pretty, the best that I ever saw, and great resort of gallants." Pepys went back several more times and continued to be amused. The puppet he saw was a marionette, not a glove-puppet, and Gimonde did his show within a tent.
Source:
Punch and Judy is a very popular puppet show which children in Britain love to watch. It is traditionally performed at the seaside in a small booth which can easily be transported. The characters are all glove puppets. The story is told by a man who calls himself “The Professor”. He cannot be seen, but he wears the puppets on his hand like gloves and makes them move.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Characters