PUNCH VERSUS SADDAM AND OSAMA

‘In my opinion it is 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 words of Charles Dickens in defending Punch and Judy shows when they were attacked as being ‘amoral’ in Victorian times.

The world has moved on since then. Or has it?

An English seaside entertainer who used Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden puppets to wrestle with Mr Punch for his sausages has been ordered to remove them from his show or face eviction from his pitch. He reluctantly agreed. Is this one up for Islamic militants?

In a well-established tradition, Professor Brent de Witt has always used topical figures as villains in his Punch and Judy show on the beach in Broadstairs, Kent . He said that using Saddam and bin Laden was topical and fun "but a few people did not care for it and instead of telling me they went straight to the local council".

In his show Bin Laden was cast as the devil and received the time-honoured treatment from Mr Punch, who bashed both villains over the head with his stick.

For the record, Punch and Judy has been entertaining English audiences since the late 1700s, but the earliest shows date back to the wandering Commedia dell' Arte troupes of 14th century Italy. Pulcinella, a hook-nosed, cowardly buffoon, was a popular character in the comic plays of these actors.

The Broadstairs’ broadside against Mr Punch was not the first time county councils in England have put Punch and Judy under fire. Way back in 1947 (wonderful how you can Google up these facts) the Middlesex County Council said "No more Punch and Judy shows at school treats: the show is brutal and totally unfit for the innocent eyes and ears of children" or words to that effect.

A poem published in The Law Times had as its final verse:

If you fall for Punch and Judy you become morose and broody

And ev'ry decent sentiment is barred;

Your faculties precocious crave what's horrid and ferocious

In the manner of the late Marquis de Sade.

Your story makes its deadline when you hit some tabloid headline

With the murder that your twisted mind has planned;

It's too late to plead repentance when the Judge pronounces sentence

And that's why Punch and Judy must be banned.

The Broadstairs saga makes me wonder if complaints would have been made if Professor de Witt had used Tony Blair and George Bush as characters rather than Saddam and bin Laden. Probably not, which shows how politically (in)correct the world is becoming.

What next? Is it only a matter of time before vegans demand that Punch's sausages be replaced with a soggy lettuce?