In Bed with Mr Punch
Bianca Eichler experiences the rise of the angry white working class through the eyes of a recently unemployed Punch and Judy puppeteer.
There’s something wrong. There are no shafts of light from mobile phones being hastily turned off, there is no awkward standing to let pass someone late to their seat and there is no one next to me eating loud sweets. I have often questioned the filming of live theatre. Sometimes the camera forces your gaze to a part of the stage where you did not choose to look. This hijacking of visual choices has made me weary of these out-of-theatre experiences.
But this is how I experience Punched. Sitting snuggly in my bed as, on screen, I watch a spartan stage come alive with strange and wonderful sounds. There are echoes of a twisted and battered universe. The silhouette of a puppet theatre is seen but, it seems, there is a perspective problem. The stage is littered with empty cans of drink. As the lights go up we see why – we are not the intended audience. We are here to see, quite literally, behind the curtain of a man torn between his past, present and impending future.
Based on an original text written in 1861, there is an awkward, perhaps discordant, rhythm to the writing and a mix of archaic language and 21st Century references – to our wars in Afghanistan for instance, and our woke culture which judges men like our protagonist to be the reason that we as a society will never progress.
From the perspective of this man behind the curtain, he is everything we want him to be and expect him to be. Which is a parody of the elusive white working-class man. His costume, whether intentionally or not, reflects the colours of the St George flag and, maybe, the pristine white t-shirt belies the man beneath. He was once someone who took pride in himself.
The Punch and Judy show is a part of our cultural heritage that has gone the way of so many others. Originally, in Commedia dell Arte, the Punch character was a lascivious and wicked soul but in our collective imagination has been changed to something that is pliable and quaint.
We watch nervously as the play progresses; as those lines between reality and entertainment come crashing down between the characters. We look on with horror as a man is consumed by every possible excess. An unexpected, chilling, turn forces the audience to question their own reality.
The play was superbly acted and directed by Dominique Gerrard and the writing by John Knowles was truly imaginative and thought provoking. A brief moment of the puppet drug dance felt somewhat removed from the rest of the excellently balanced and fine line created here and reminded me of the cautionary tales that touring companies take to schools. It is not an easy play to watch and that is its strength. It confronts us and slaps us in the face with things we don’t want to deal with. Watching on the medium that has contributed to the downfall of much live theatre there was a certain element of art imitating life. As a monologue this format works brilliantly, and I would encourage more to be filmed and streamed this way.
• ‘Punched’ was staged at the Stables Theatre earlier this summer and the recorded version is available on-line by request from [email protected]
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