A documentary feature first heard onon CBC Radio IDEAS May 9, 2012.
How a deformed, child-murdering,
wife-beating, psychopathic hand puppet became a cultural icon, a famous satirical magazine, and a four-century-old folkplay cherished by small children for enacting horrendous acts of violence.
Mister Punch began as Pulcinello in 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte, but the scoundrel probably stole some qualities from the Lord of Misrule and Trickster traditions.
His appearance in England was first recorded by the diarist Samuel Pepys who saw him in London's Covent Garden on May 9, 1662. Pepys described the event in his diary as "an Italian puppet play, that is within the rails there, which is very pretty."
Mister Punch began as Pulcinello in 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte, but the scoundrel probably stole some qualities from the Lord of Misrule and Trickster traditions.
