Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CLOWN (02/13/20)
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TITLE: Punch and Judy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
02/20/20 -
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“It’s all a bit of fun,” James wheedled. “Come on. I grew up watching the show every time my family went to Brighton, and have I ever beaten you or the kids up?”
“That’s not the point!”
“That’s exactly the point,” her husband disagreed. “And, have you ever seen one of the shows?”
“Well, no…”
James smiled triumphantly, “I don’t think you can judge until you see for yourself. Next week I’m taking you to see a traditional Punch and Judy show.”
The following week, James led Harriet, Emily and Peter, to the Brighton Pier where the puppet box had been erected. Soon a small crowd of parents and excited children, ice lollies in hand, sat on the ground, waiting expectantly.
Suddenly up bobbed Mr Punch, and in his characteristic swizzle induced voice, started humming to himself, seemingly oblivious to the audience. He turned and started as he saw the people, but before he could say anything Judy popped up holding a baby, and immediately bashed Punch over the head. The audience laughed, and she turned, startled.
Harriet stood back, disdain and disapproval radiating from every pore of her body. Silently she watched the scene unfold. Judy was telling Punch she had to go out for a while, handed the baby off to Punch and left the stage.
Punch, holding onto the baby with one hand, turned to the audience and started talking to them. He placed the baby down and then, whilst talking, sat on the baby! The kids laughed uproariously. Punch was puzzled and asked why they were laughing. Much pantomime followed as Punch tried to find his baby.
In the back Harriet couldn’t understand why the other parents weren’t outraged. How could they possibly find this funny? How could they allow this kind of thing? Didn’t they know thousands of children were being hurt every day?
Once Punch found his baby and kissed him all over to ensure he was all right, he decided to make a start on making dinner. He pulled out a sausage maker, and again, keeping the baby under one arm, fed meat through the sausage machine. Suddenly the kids went crazy. “There’s a crocodile!” they yelled.
“Where?” Punch looked around wildly, of course never in the direction of the reptile.
“He’s behind you!” But the moment Punch looked behind him, the crocodile moved. However with the help of the audience, and his baby, Punch finally located the crocodile and used his stick to get rid of him, but not before the crocodile landed in a good few bites, which now occasioned the heralding of the doctor.
As Harriet continued to watch the parody of life unfold before her, she found herself chuckling at the puppets’ antics. It was all so unlike real life. Mr Punch’s clowning around was larger-than-life, his features carved into wood so exaggerated that it beggared belief, and his funny rasping, high-pitched, swizzle-created voice so unrealistic that she began to see, for the first time, why her husband, and so many million Britons actually enjoyed these puppet pantomimes.
As the show drew to a close, and Judy returned home and berated her husband for sitting on the baby, but giving him a big kiss for getting dinner ready, and not succumbing to the wiles of the crocodile, Harriet started to relax.
“What did you think then love?” James asked as they, along with Emily and Peter, wended their way back along the pier to their hotel.
“I hate to admit it, but you are right.” She playfully punched her husband’s shoulder as she saw his grin.
“Hey! It will never be my favourite puppet show, but I can see why people love it. It’s just too slap-stick to ever be taken seriously. And that voice! How can you feel that Punch is ever a threat with that voice?”
James hooked an arm around her shoulders, and leaned in to give her a kiss. “Great! Ok, next week we will watch ‘It’, all right?”
Before she could respond, he quickly said, “I really am only kidding. No way are we ever watching that!”
(713 words)
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Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England on 9 May 1662. “He became, really, a spirit of Britain – a subversive maverick who defies authority, a kind of puppet equivalent to our political cartoons.”
—Punch and Judy showman Glyn Edwards
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But it is truly "mild" in terms of what they're viewing and recording on their cell phones these days.
Well done,
Blessings~