Punch and Judy show for Saltfleetby Coronation event cancelled due to parish council objection

Professor Paul Douglas, who has been performing his Punch & Judy show in Mablethorpe for more than 60 years after starting his show up at the age of nine, was booked by the Saltfleetby Community Association (SCA) to perform at their upcoming family fun day event to celebrate King Charles III’s Coronation on Saturday May 6.

But now Mr Douglas’s act has been cancelled as Saltfleetby Parish Council stepped in, deeming the act to be “inappropriate”. They said in correspondence to the SCA, seen by the Louth Leader, that they would only provide the funding for the Coronation event, from the EK Wind Farm Community Fund, if the Punch & Judy show was pulled from the line-up. The parish council is responsible for approving grants from the wind farm fund.

"For me it’s not about the money and losing money for a gig,” Paul said, “It’s that it’s been called inappropriate.

"With all the violence and sexual content on the internet and soaps such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street, I just thought it was funny.

“It’s one of Britain’s oldest traditions.

"I have been performing Punch for 60 years and I've never had a cancellation because of the content of a traditional Punch & Judy show before.”

A spokesman for the SCA said that the cancellation was because, in an email responding to their application for funding for their Coronation event, the parish council said their application will only be approved if they agree not to have the Punch & Judy show, as the panel felt it was “not appropriate”.

“It’s a dying art and we feel like we’re being held to ransom by saying we’ll have the funding cut if we don’t cancel the Punch & Judy,” the SCA spokesman added.

The SCA’s event will be held on Saturday May 6 at the Saltfleetby Community Hall and football field, starting at 2pm, and will see a classic vehicle display, children’s fancy dress competition, evening live music, a disco and a hog roast.

Saltfleetby Parish Council has declined to comment.

The origins of Punch & Judy shows, which typically see Mr Punch and his wife, Judy exchanging slapstick blows and rude jokes, can be traced back more than 350 years.

According to https://www.vam.ac.uk/, Samuel Peyps first noted seeing Pietro Gimonde from Bologna, otherwise known as Signor Bologn in Covent Garden, London in May 1662, which he referred to as the “Polichinello”, eventually anglicised to Punch, which had a thuggish nature, beak-like mask and squeaky voice.

Punch became more popular in Britain during the 18th century and a marionette theatre in Bath in 1709 featured performances by Punch and Joan (as today's Judy was then known), and were most popular during the 19th century.

Charles Dickens himself referred to the shows as “one of those extravagant reliefs from the realities of life which would lose its hold upon the people if it were made moral and instructive. I regard it as quite harmless in its influence, and as an outrageous joke which no one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct”.

The shows have been on gradual decline since the 20th century however, and there have been calls to ban the shows due to their depictions of violence against women and children, as Punch invariably would be seen hitting his wife Judy with a stick and killing their baby.