Punch and Judy still rule the waves at Southend (From Echo)

Punch and Judy still rule the waves at Southend

10:00am Tuesday 4th August 2009 in

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SOUTHEND seafront’s annual puppet festival proved it still has what it takes to entertain the crowds, 21 years after it was launched.

This year, more than 80 shows were staged by seven puppeteers along the pier.

When it first took place, the festival was a Punch and Judy celebration, and the traditional seaside show is still one of the most popular.

Puppeteer Chris Gasper, of Woodgrange Close, Southend, said: “We all have the same theme, but we all do a different performance. Punch and Judy has been going for nearly 350 years.

“Nowadays, some shows are more politically correct than others.”

The first recorded Punch and Judy performance in England was in Covent Garden, in 1652, but Mr Gasper said the type of show we know today was created in Victorian times.

He said: “The animal Punch fights with used to be a horse, but the Victorians began getting exotic animals at London Zoo, and it became a crocodile.

“The show also changed from using marionettes to glove puppets.”

Punch and Judy’s famously unhappy marriage sees them battering each other with household implements and dropping the baby down the stairs, all to great comic effect.

For the group of youngsters gathered to watch a performance on Saturday, it was all great fun.

Mum Donna Sturgeon, of Arnold Avenue, Southend, watched it with her three daughters, aged from one to ten.

She said: “They all enjoyed it. It’s something different for them they wouldn’t ordinarily see.”