Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep17: Loremen S4 Ep17 - The Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch - LIVE!

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

You're listening to Loreboys Investigate: When Glove Puppets Kill. Alasdair helps James get better acquainted with one Mr Punch: the nastiest little man in England. And that is a very competitive field indeed. In this episode, the Loreboys take on a true folk antihero. Mr Punch is malevolent, puckish and proud. And just like Super Mario, he's lost his Italian accent. Find out why you should never touch your neighbour's sausages, and learn how the Punch and Judy show influenced the writing of ghostmaster-general, M. R. James. This episode was recorded in front of a very well-mannered live audience as part of the Cheerful Earful Podcast festival. Content Warning: Punch and Judy is a traditional form of children's entertainment, so expect bloody murder and domestic violence. Loreboys nether say die! Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.youtube.com/loremenpodcast

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And James, we've got a live episode in the bag. Yeah. Can you see it wriggling? Uh, yeah. It's about a horrible little man.

Oh, yeah? His name's Mr Punch. Ah, okay. The less said about him, the better, frankly. And now here's a podcast on that subject. Here's a 40-minute chat about him. Why are we not in our own homes, James? I don't know.

I just woke up here. I'm scared. Where am I? What year is this? Who's the president? You don't know. I just woke up here. I'm scared. Where am I? What year is this? Who's the president? You haven't had any sleep, have you? No, I've had minimal sleep. I believe we're in London.

We are in London. Yes, tick. Why are we here, James? Well, we're here as part of the Cheerful Earful Podcast Festival. As you can see from the writing on here, on our microphones, and the writing on here, on our microphones, and the writing on here, on our cube. Listeners will just have to listen to the writing on the microphones and the

writing on what they can only imagine. They can only imagine what the cube might be. Well, I think they've got a very good idea of what it is. They know what shape it is. Yes. But they don't know what powers it has. Oh, it's a glowing cube there you go there you go there's literally nothing else to know how's your water it's um james right oh this has obviously got off on the wrong foot james said should i go and get some water he went to go and get some water it's half and half fizzy water and normal water it's the best what do you mean, frizzante? I don't know what that means. It's not Italian for terrible water.

No, it's for lovely. Congas is fizzy. I don't know what without gas is. Just aqua. Aqua. Yeah, water. Senza. Senza.

Senza. Which means nice. Half and half frizzante. Frizzante. It's neither micklin Which means nice. Half and half. Frisante. Frisante. Is neither Micklin nor Mucklin, as no Italian has ever said. Funny that you should mention Italy, because that ties in very, very neatly with what I'm going to talk about today. Does it?

Yes. I'm going to talk about a true British folk legend, but his roots are in the nation of Italy. Oh, yeah. I feel like I have to sort of start with a warning to the curious here, because I'm going to talk about Mr. Punch of Punch and Judy fame. Oh, yeah.

Which is like, you know, fun puppet show for kids, but also just the most appalling story you could possibly imagine. Like, there's no... I tried to come up with like a content warning and the content warning itself needs a content warning so like if you if you think if you don't like anything if anything is an issue for you stop listening to this podcast does it take does it contain a lot of peril it's so much it's not even mild. It's serious peril. Adult situations.

If it was like a sort of a chilli rating of peril with three being the most amount of chillis or peril. Yep. It's three. It's four. Oh. There'd be four chillis. I'd have to go and get an extra chilli and stick it on. Oh no. That's how perilous we're talking.

Whoa. I guess, to be honest, I'm, as ever, not a fan of nominative determinism but you can probably work it out from his name right mr punch yeah mr punch mr punch yeah not not like punch like he's your mate mr punch like he's your neighbor and also your violent neighbor i don't miss so james um you're english yes you probably have some awareness of what a punch and judy show is and listeners overseas might have some idea they had they were popular in america for a time really but it's mostly a british tradition would you like to describe for me what you think a punch and judy show is okay are you in the room you you think a Punch and Judy show is? Okay. Are you, in the room, you broadly know what Punch and Judy is?

It's still a thing. A lot of people nodding in spite of the fact this is essentially an audio medium. There's like 400 people here all nodding. We have only 12 of them left at that, but okay. All the rest have got both thumbs up. So, A Punch and Judy Show. It tends to happen at the seaside, I'd say. It's a puppet show.

Correct. Involving a little tent, for some reason. The puppet show is like in its own little miniature theatre that moves around. I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember when the BT man cometh. I'm sorry? When, you know the boxes that have the phone lines in them on the street? Yes.

And the BT man would cometh and he'd bring a little stripy tent with him. James, where do you live that you remember when they installed telephone lines? I thought I was 400 years old. How have you experienced any of this? It's called the countryside. Okay, right. We genuinely had to... Coming at him with pitchforks. We had to fill out a form to get the internet. And unfortunately, we couldn't get that form because the form was online. But yeah, so that is like a little stripy tent

that clearly a man is hiding inside. Yes. And he sticks his hands up and those hands are covered in puppets. I really forgot how to describe puppets there.

Yeah, you described glove puppets in the most disgusting way imaginable. His hands are covered in puppets. What you've neatly sidestepped the fact

that the story of Mr. Punch is a story of extreme violence. I'm not sure. I don't ever feelpped the fact that the story of Mr. Punch is a story of extreme violence. I'm not sure. I don't ever feel like I ever understood the story. I don't think I ever got to the end. It's a very odd story.

So I'm going to, I'm going to help you out a little bit. I'm going to give you Charles Hall Grand Gents. Oh, yes. That's his name. Description. He was an American linguist and he described Mr. Punch in 1928 thus. He was an American linguist, and he described Mr. Punch in 1928 thus. The play of Mr. Punch, a catalogue of crime, a series of sins, a world of wickedness.

Why? That's just the word why with an exclamation mark. Why? If we should see these things on the planks of his grown-up namesake, the Grand Guignol, we should have the shudders for a week. What shall we say of a hero who with no adequate motive, ruthlessly and gleefully destroys his child and his wife, who defies law and divine, clubs to death the representative of the human variety,

and at last, after a long run of wrongdoing, extinguishes the devil himself? Ooh, wow. Which is, roughly speaking, the plot of the story of Mr. Punch. So can I just, should I list the characters that I remember? Yes, please do. Okay, so you've got your big dog, Mr. P, Mr. Punch. That's confusing because there is a dog in the story,

but you won't have seen that because it fell out of popularity by the time we were alive. I think it was replaced with a crocodile. A crocodile. They leveled the dog up pokemon style and it became a crocodile yeah mr punch the big guy yeah uh the main fella that's the way to do it is that him that is his catchphrase that's the way to do it um yes he did have footnotes none of the things he describes as the way to do it are the way to do it. Please do not do any of the things that way. He had a wife.

Judy. Of course. Her name's in the title of the show. Punch and Judy. There was a baby. The baby is called the baby. The baby is the baby.

A policeman. Yes. And the aforementioned Crocodileo. Crocodile, yes. So there's loads of other characters that have come and gone.

The Scaramouche. The Scaramououche as in do the Fandango. Can he? Well, if doing the Fandango involves your head extending way up out of the top of your neck, that was Scaramouche's trick. His head was sort of telescopic. I guess we'll never know if that's what Freddie Mercury meant. It's a shame we can't ask him.

He would be Punch's master or neighbour or landlord depending on the version of it. There was also a ghost and the devil and a hangman

and a whole load of racist characters as well. There would usually be a funny foreigner character who would be called like a Jim Crow sometimes, like the racist parody of a sort of minstrel character or Shalabala, which was just a general foreign person who only says Shalabala because that's

how foreigners sound. I said he started out as an Italian, as so many of us have. The origins of Mr. Punch are Pulcinella from the Commedia dell'arte. Yes. That character is a sort of a horrible servant character with a hump and a huge nose and a paunch. And Mr. Punch retains those characteristics in glove puppet form, although he no longer dresses in black and white like Commedia dell'arte. He's red and yellow like a traditional

British jester. It's not just in Britain where you have his sort of relatives. In the Netherlands, they have Jan Pickleherring or John Pickleherring. In Germany, they have Hans Wurst, John Sausage, to translate that into English. So he was brought to the UK by Italian performers. Now, to begin with, it wouldn't have been glove puppets. It would have been marionettes. Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were going to say actual humans. Giovanni Piccini is centrally responsible

for bringing over the modern Punch and Judy show that we recognise. Johnny Pacini. That's translated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although later on you'll see him referred to as Porcini because English people will not learn how to pronounce your name. Because English people are thinking about sausages. Actually, it's mushrooms, isn't it?

It's blooming mushrooms. I've embarrassed myself there. I always think it's pigs, but it's not. it's mushrooms, isn't it? It's bloomin' mushrooms. I've embarrassed myself there. I always think it's pigs, but it's not. It's mushrooms. Mushrooms. Because we're English. We're always thinking about sausages. So are the Germans.

Yes, exactly. Especially John Sausage. We're very alike, you know, in many ways. Yep. In 1662, Samuel Pepys mentions his... Samuel Pepys, famous diarist. Mm-hmm. Thank you.

Not actually a funny word, but it sounds like it nearly is. It's got a little bit of diarrhea in there. Yes. And if you've read the diary... Yes. He did like cheese. In 1662, Samuel Pepys went to see an Italian puppet play, which is very pretty, the best I ever saw.

He saw Signor Bologna probably performing a Fantacini show. A Fantacini show, which would be like a marionette version of it. And basically nobody writes anything about Punch and Judy for a couple of hundred years after that. That's probably not accurate. Don't correct me if you're listening. That's probably not accurate. Don't correct me if you're listening. But the big, big hit in terms of recording the folk tradition of Punch and Judy comes in 1827,

when John Payne Collier and the illustrator George Cruikshank publish The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy. Is the comical tragedy or the tragical comedy? It is both the comical tragedy or the tragical comedy of Punch and Judy. Is the comical tragedy or the tragical comedy? It is both the comical tragedy or the tragical comedy of Punch and Judy. Okay, all right. And I've got a copy of it here. It's the earliest known script for Punch and Judy. I'm going to hand it to you.

You might want to look at that. Oh, it's a script? It's a script for Punch and Judy. And what I like about this is, I don't know if the law folk can see, it's got Victorian adverts for little Punch and Judy shows that you can put on yourself at home. So that's just some ideas for you for Christmas there, James.

Oh, lovely. A marvellous doll. A marvellous doll. It was so easy to advertise things in those days. Yes. You didn't need an angle. Just like a doll. The dancing skeleton.

They have slightly. They've punched up a skeleton. They have. Listen, I have to say, the company that manufactured these are Gammeigs, or Jammeigs of Holborn, and Bennett Finks of Cheapside. Yeah, so coming together of two companies. Gammeigs of Holborn and Bennett Finks of Cheapside. Together at last. You bring your marvellous doll,

I'll bring my dancing skeleton and we can clean up. Oh, you can do pet plays. It's a box containing a theatre stage from

Scenery and the Figures. Funny that you mentioned pets because I mentioned that the Toby dog used to be part of the Punch and Judy show. So we might have seen the crocodile. Some of you, I think, might be dog used to be part of the Punch and Judy show.

So we might've seen the crocodile. Some of you, I think, might be too young to have ever actually seen a Punch and Judy show. Before it was a crocodile, it was a real small dog. What? That would play around with Mr. Punch on the stage. And that's where the whole story starts, really. The dog bites Mr. Punch on the nose.

It's very funny, but Punch is very angry. So he murders the dog's owner. I mean, we've all thought of it. Nobody likes a bit of neighbour drama, and one of the ways of resolving that is to beat them to death with a slapstick. How apologetic are they? Well, he stretched his head out all the way up to the ceiling.

Oh, OK, yeah. But I'm not sure if that was by way of apology or if that's just a party piece. I think that comes across as flexing yeah it does it's like oh you want a fight um he punch then returns home uh where Judy asks him to look after the baby uh the baby has a sore tummy so he whacks it repeatedly on the side of the stage the children love this yeah we I do that. And then throws it out of the, well,

the quote is, when Judy says, what happened to the baby? Punch says, oh, he's fine. He's somewhere around here. And she says, uh,

no, where is the baby? And then Punch says, I threw it at the window. Window is spelt W-I-N-D-E-R. It's window. You have to say it like that. Yes.

He goes on, he meets a beadle sometimes. He meets a police officer. He meets. He goes on. He meets a beadle sometimes. He meets a police officer. He meets all sorts of people. He meets a judge. He meets a doctor. He kills the lot of them. It's not a spree.

It's a killing spree. He's Britain's first serial killer. He finally meets the devil. And depending on who you ask, he is either killed by the devil thus ending his murderous reign or more authentically he kills the devil and then the story ends with huzzah huzzah the devil is dead is that good then well i weirdly it sort of parallels you know um he's kind of a a clockwork orange kind of character okay though you're gonna say jesus in a way that's a little bit like Jesus.

We brought you here to teach you a few lessons about the Gospels. He's a serial killer who fights the devil. You know, Jesus. Well, like, to spoil Clockwork Orange, there are two endings to Clockwork Orange. In the book, Alex grows up and leaves behind all of his violence. And in the film, he isn't cured and he goes back to his violent ways. And so there's two endings to the Mr. Punch story.

A more reassuring one where the devil gets him at last. And a much more sinister one where he's like, killed him. I guess he must be the devil then. He sort of becomes the devil if he's scarier than the devil. Yeah, like a sort of Stack-a-Lee character in the folk song Stack-a-Lee, who also threatens the devil. Are you saying Stack-ally? It's Stack-ally, Stagger-lee, and Stack-o-lee, same guy.

It's like John Pickle-Paring, Mr. Punch, same guy. And what was he, Tommy Sausage? Yeah, Steve Chips, yeah. Martin Fishcake. So, if we jump forward to the mid-19th century, a couple of years later, Henry Mayhew was a sort of gonzo journalist of the time. He was a sort of Louis Theroux,

but I'm going to say John Ronson because it's an easier accent to do. I can't really do Louis Theroux. And he would go around interviewing- Why do you think that is? Are you being that? He was trying to be a bit of a Louis Theroux vibe. Eventually, he published a book called London Labour and the London Poor, where he interviewed poor people so people would find out what that was like. Sidebar dreadful. out what that was like. Sidebar dreadful. It came in the end in four volumes. Volume one called volume one. Volume two called volume two. Volume three called volume three. And volume four called

Those That Will Not Work. It sounds like you give him a fair chance, but just got to the end of his tether. Yes. So I think there's a lot of Tories, I think. I think Mr. Punch, obvious Tory. Scaramouche is a landlord, probably a Tory. I think pretty much everyone in this is a Tory. Is the crocodile a Tory? Well, the crocodile steals sausages from the sausage patch, so I can only assume that he's an envious lefty

who's annoyed at the Punch's hard work that's gone into growing sausages. And he wants them for himself, but he does not want to work. Sorry, Alistair. I know you're a vegan. Yes. That's not how we get sausages. Oh, sorry. The version of Mr. Punch I saw, punch grew sausages in a sausage patch.

Is that what, is this your origin story? Well, I missed a punch. Have you killed the devil? I don't know, have I? Has anyone seen him lately? The greatest devil, the greatest, forget it. The greatest trick I ever pulled was making people think I hadn't killed the devil.

And then we'll take the laugh from when I said forget it. Put it on the end and it'll look great. There you go, sorted. So he describes all sorts of fun tricks. It's a little bit of the fraternity of vagabonds, but updated for the 19th century. The kind of scurrilous tricks that people would get up to. Selling straws is one of them, which is,

and I think this still goes on on like the dark web. If you wanted to sell something illegal, like drawings of ladies, you know the kind have you ever seen one james an illegal drawing of a lady of a lady i would not admit to it on a live stream how can okay if you wanted to if you wanted to sell an illicit drawing you you couldn't so what you do is you would sell a bundle of straws for a vastly inflated price and then give the pornography away as like a free pamphlet that would come with it. Yes, yeah.

I thought you were going to say you would roll it up really tightly and put it inside the straw. And then they have, not only do they have an illicit picture, they've also got a fun puzzle. Because I imagine you'd have to cut it up into quite small pieces to get it into the straws.'ve always thought that um that users of pornography needed a hobby and there it is uh there was a often people would be tricked though because it was so illicit people would buy bundles of pornography apparently you shouldn't be buying

porn by weight give me a kilo of smutty drawings, please. What a busy weekend. No. But they would go away and find that the bundle they had bought did not have any drawings in it and was just old periodicals. Just pictures of straws. Oh, mocking me. That's kind of like, have you seen the illicit pens?

Yeah. Do you remember the sexy pens? Sexy pen. It's a woman who's wearing clothes, but you turn it upside down. Oh, man. Not so much. Hey. like you you have you seen the illicit pens yeah do you remember the sexy pen sexy pen she's it's a woman who's wearing clothes but you turn it upside down or not so much hey i've seen one with a man one but i don't feel like they were there was less to remove henry mayhew interviewed a punchman these days you would call them a professor but in in those days that yep although many of them do not have a qualification to not teach at a university.

Yeah, but they've got a threat, I suppose. You call them whatever they want to be called. They can't really punch you because their hands are covered with puppets. You'll have to excuse me. The 1850s was peak, peak writing, working class people, phonetically time. And so the accent I'm about to do is not my fault because it's how it's written.

And the Punchman who Henry Mayhew interviewed described it thus. Punch, you may know, sir, is a dramatic performance in two acts. It is a play, you might say. I don't think it can be called

a tragedy exactly. It is a drama, what we call it. There is tragic parts and comic and sentimental parts too. Some families where I perform it will have it most sentimental, all in the original style. Them families is generally sentimental themselves. Others is all for the comic and then I has to kick up all the games I can. To the sentimental folk I'm obliged to perform it very steady and very slow and leave out all the comic words and business.

They won't have no ghost, no coffin and no devil. And that's what I call spoiling the performance entirely. It's the march of hint-elect what's doing this, sir. Is it political? It's political. It's gone mad. It's gone mad. It's gone mad.

It's gone mad. Hint-elect. It's the intellectuals like you, James. So the thing that we haven't mentioned yet is that Mr. Punchy has a very distinctive high-pitched voice. Yes. Which is produced by a little secret device that the Punchman keeps in his mouth called a swazzle. Ah. And Henry Mayhew, a.k.a. John Ronson.

I think you could get your own. Could you get a voc... In here it advertises the vocophone. The vocophone? Subheading, an evening's entertainment in your waistcoat pocket. That sounds awful. That sounds really bad. You can imitate all brass instruments rendering good solos.

Not great, just good. I can do that. I don't even need a waistcoat. The listeners, I have to inform you, James is not actually playing a trumpet. He's producing those sounds with his mouth. It's like that Winslow guy from... Yes, from Police Academy.

Police Academy. Henry Mayhew, a.k.a. John Ronson, says, the call, he told me, was tuned to a musical instrument and took a considerable time to learn. He afterwards took from his pocket two of the small metallic plates unbound. He said the composition they were made of was also one of the...

Sorry, I'm about to transition accents there. Was also one of the... Secrets of the profession. They were not tin or zinc because... Both of them metals were poisons in the mouth and injurious to the constitution. These cause, he continued. Oh, wow. Good effort. Thank you.

We often sell to gentlemen for a sovereign a piece and for that we give them a receipt how to use them. They ain't whistles but calls or unknown tongues as we sometimes call them because with them in the mouth we can pronounce each word as plain as any person we have two or three kinds one for outdoors one for indoors one for speaking and one for singing and another for selling oh so i think a less good quality one that uh it palms off oh i thought that was one that like heightened his like marketing skills or like it just kind of it's sort of on the fly like a babel fish like increased his seo can i i've seen i've noticed a couple of products in here please please

we might want to buy some of them you know we said that in those days it was very easy to sell stuff you didn't need to big you know you didn't need to kind of yeah yeah yeah spice up well here we've got the toy the child likes best yep it's stone building blocks yep it's the toy the child likes best they're just cubes is the slogan. Bricks. I feel like when it says the child, it's talking about a specific child. Yeah. Real stone. That doesn't make any better. It's real stone. James, that knocks a jointed cloth doll into a cocked hat.

It would have quite literally, yes, if you smashed it hard enough with your real stone blocks. There's the surprise whistle. The surprise whistle. The thing is, I can't describe the picture of it. They've drawn it. There's a beautiful etching of a child blowing it directly in a gentleman's face. And he hates it.

It's just awful. It's like, is your child the worst? Get the surprise whistle. It's, I think the blurb as well is written by your guy, because it goes, you will hear this terrific noise maker. The only perfect dog, bird or call whistle made beats all for hailing streetcars,

meaning nickel and rubber. Rubber? Yeah, I don't know. That must be... Oh, it bounces back. Nice. Perfect. Unlike your stone

building blocks. The gentleman slaps it out of your mouth. Yeah. Well, you might be saying, James, all right,

this is all well and good, but is it spooky? We've only had one devil and a ghost. And I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine and a friend of the show's. Yes.

Mr. James. M.R. James. Mr. James. To give him his full name, Montague Rhodes James. Which wasn't his accent. No. I didn't know what M.R. stood for. And now I know it's Montague Rhodes.

Montague Rhodes. Montague Rhodes. Montague Rhodes. Montague Rhodes. Montague Rhodes, James. Firstest girl in the West. He was not. That's not his vibe at all. No. He was a Cambridge Don.

Probably could do, like, fill a pipe really fast. Softest whistle in the West. So there is a connection between all of M.R. James' work, which I think you will agree has been a central pillar of English spookiness. Yeah. And Mr. Punch. What? And my source for this is the philologist Trevor Hill.

That's someone who knows a lot about phils. Yes. From Schofield to Uncle. He knows them all. No one calls him Phil Schofield, but he was the only other Phil I could think of. So, Trevor Hill wrote an article in 2022 about the connection between Mr. Punch and the writings of M.R. James. And the reason I'm building up to this with so much drama is that article is called That's the Way to Woo It.

Oh, that is first class. That is lovely. If you're not convinced, don't worry, there's a footnote explaining that joke in the article. This sounds like one of my tweets. You do have a very discursive tweeting style.

The footnote is, for those readers unfamiliar with the Punch and Judy tradition, this title may be a little puzzling. It's wordplay based on Mr. Punch's catchphrase, that's the way to do it. And the sound, woo. Which British native speakers often attribute to ghosts. And this is a fascinating article all about M.R. James because M.R. James' essential conception of ghosts ties back to Punch and Judy.

What? In his piece, Ghosts Treat Them Gently, in Ghosts Treat Them Gently, 1913, M.R. James says, What first interested me in ghosts treat them gently 1913 m.r. james says what first interested me in ghosts this i can tell you quite definitely in my childhood i chanced to see a toy punch and judy set with figures cut out in cardboard one of these was the ghost it was a tall figure habited in white with an unnaturally long and narrow head also surrounded with white upon this my conceptions of a ghost were based and for years it permeated my dreams and in fact hypnagoria.com has tried to track down the original paper cutout that he might have seen if you're interested in seeing

cutouts of mr punch and the ghost it sounds like they brought the cheapest set when they probably should have gone probably should have gone for the stone one it's every child's favorite toy um he wrote a story called the story of a disappearance and an appearance you didn't need to give stories good names in those days there were hardly any stories about and i i almost can't read a a quote from that because it's quite grim it's really grisly if you want to hear a good version of it, Tony Walker's Classic Ghost Stories podcast has quite a good version of the story in full. But I'm going to read a short section of it because in that story, a character has a dream of a murderous Mr. Punch on a rampage. I came to dread the moment of death, the crack of the stick on their skulls which in the ordinary way delights me had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way and the victims quivered and kicked

as they lay the baby it sounds more ridiculous as i go on the baby i'm sure was alive punch wrung its neck and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality. Ooh. Which is... That is grim. It's really... That is pretty grim. I think it's the goriest and nastiest thing

M.R. James has written that I've read. It's really spooked up. Yeah. Which leads me quite neatly onto the nastiest part of the punch story, which I've been skipping over. Oh. Which is his encounter with Jack Ketch, the hangman was charles ii's executioner and he was famous for making a terrible job we do need to point out he was the executioner who worked for charles ii

because you know charles ii did have an executioner in that manner. Great point. So John Ketch was the executioner who worked for Charles II. And he was famous because he absolutely botched Lord Russell's execution with the axe. And so his name has become synonymous with hangmen, executioners and execution in general. A little bit like, and if we could pop for a second into etymology corner uh-huh yeah yeah the long-awaited return of etymology corner do you know the name of those i'm miming do you know the name of those um can anyone tell what i'm miming yeah nazis no

a nazi who hasn't made his mind up. Yeah, a wavering. An indecisive, no, no. There's hope for him yet. Think of, what about the, I drink your milkshake. Am I helping you at all there? Oh, yeah. A derrick. Yes, I was miming an oil derrick.

Well, this is why we don't normally do this in the podcast. So it's not mostly a mime-based podcast. They're the things that pump oil. The big, the big, uh, levery arch't normally do this in the podcast. So it's not mostly a mind-based podcast. They're the things that pump oil. The big, the big, uh, levery arch things, they go up and down and they're called oil Derricks, which is a weird name. And so I looked, I looked that up. They're called that because Derrick is an old name for a gallows. Oh.

And the reason it's an old name for a gallows is that it comes from the name of another famous executioner, Thomas Derrick. Tommy Derrick. Tommy Derrick? Well, yeah, but don't get too attached to him, because if you Google what he did to become an executioner, it's really bad. Oh, did he start as an amateur? Or do the open circuit? Worked his way up to the pro circuit, yeah.

Still dropped in occasionally. Yeah, he was good, good actually He gave a lot back So Thomas Dirick Like Jack Ketch Have been immortalised In the most unpleasant way possible Because of their jobs While we're in Etymology Corner

Mr Punch Is the origin of the phrase Pleased as punch Ah He's very happy He's so happy With all of his murders And it's also the origin

Of the phrase Punch and duty politics, which has come to mean like, we're both as bad as each other, scoring cheap shots. But actually, if you look at the story, one of them is an insane murderer. And the other one is upset

because he killed their child. And is killing them. It's like classic centrist brain to be like, I find the truth is somewhere in between. I think they're both just as bad as each other. I'm looking at the time there. Oh. We need to do the scores.

Oh, yes. And there's absolutely no way we have time to throw it open to the crowds of hundreds of people. Yes. So I think I'm going to have to ask you for a quick fire score round. Okay. Okay. I'll score you. If that's all right. I'm so sorry to take democracy out of score round. Okay, okay, I'll score you. If that's all right.

I'm so sorry to take democracy out of your hands. James, are you ready to score Mr. Punch? Yes. My first category for you is names. Naming. Naming. He's called Punch. He's called Punch.

He does punch. He punches. Jack Ketch. When he says, he says, what's your name? And he says, I'm Jack Ketch. He says, well, catch this. And he punches him in the stomach. Oh.

So that's two puns. But but catch didn't catch people he dropped them yes that's the opposite of catching very much the opposite um we've got uh swazzles that's a funny word that sounds like a sweet we've got what does it mean it's not like a pig i thought it was like the um what was the what was the other one about the bull? Swizzle? Stick? Pizzle. I thought a swazzle was like a pig's.

No. Oh, good. As I say, always thinking about sausages. We've got Scaramouche. Yes. John Sausage and John Pickle Herring. John Sausage. Love the names.

And Charles Hall Grand Gent. And Mr. James. and Montague Rhodes James four out of five okay well I don't know what else I could have done there but I timed two ruder names

ruder names yeah probably ruder okay just a hint or tip I feel like I feel like I didn't get anything at all for that's the way to

woo oh yeah wait a minute that is technically a name yeah that's five yes is that it. Oh, yeah. Wait a minute. That is technically a name. Yeah. That's five. Yes. Is that going to go in supernatural as well?

Well, my second category is supernatural. I can see that there's no real ghosts in it, but you have to admit it's uncanny, isn't it? And it inspired Christmas ghosts. Yeah, absolutely. So much spooky creepiness. I'm going to go low though. I've got a quote to pitch you.

So, Jane Marie Law has this to say about why puppets are spooky. And I'm quoting from Hill's article. Is it? Is the quote, look at them? In essence, yes. Puppets, which exist in the shape of the human, are not simply metaphors for the human, but actually comprise a world of their own. A parallel world bridging the domain of the human and the divine. The puppet as an intersection of these two worlds is powerful and frightening, eliciting both fear and fascination. They have the capacity to draw sacred forces and can become vessels in which the sacred

comes to dwell. Furthermore, they can embody the souls of human beings, both living and dead. So my question to you, James, is you can give this a low score, but are you prepared to take the risk

of upsetting Mr. Punch? Ooh, yeah. They are creepy. And he's got that sort of half, you know, man in the moon face. I'm going to go

four. Four, okay. Four again. Considering there were no actual ghosts i've been swizzled my next category is is quite a character which is the nicest way you could describe mr punch but lots of the other people were quite a character quite a character um i think trevor hill must be quite a character. They're quite a character. I think Trevor Hill must be quite a character to give his article such an amusing name. Oh, what a...

But so well explained. Well, he doesn't want to lose anyone. He's quite the character. Some of the characters were abhorrent, but they're still characters. So it's five. Five for quite a character. Five for quite a lot of characters.

And a final category is... You can't let the Bairns watch that! But did we literally sit children in front of it? Yeah, we do. I've only watched it as a child. There's a wonderful... It did used to be for adults, and it became for children, but without them really changing it enough.

How was it fast? If you look on YouTube, there's not that many Punch and Judy shows available, but you can find a Pathé News one from the early 20th century. And the description is like, children from all over enjoying Punch and Judy. But if you watch the children's faces, they are hating it. There's just long close-ups of children crying.

Child after child is going, what am I seeing? The voice was terrifying. That might drop in a little recording from... Yeah, the past. From a public domain film of Punch forcing kisses upon Judy. That's not good. What was the category again? You cannot show that to the Benz.

Can't show that to the Benz. But we do. And it's exclusively the audience now. So I'm just going to have to go three. What? It's middle. Because you shouldn't. But we do.

But you do. What a low-key ending. Well. For a live. Oh, wait. Don't you worry. Because for the very cheap price of 10D with 2D postage, pets, transfers, and scraps.

I don't know. Is that like a pet swapping system? And you might end up with just bits of pets. Oh, sorry. The price I quoted was the standard size you can get larger which is is the price of one slash ten i don't know how they counted in the past that is a shilling tenpence is what that is we all we all know do we yeah we all we all know what. Yeah, everyone is nodding. All 10,000.

Thank you so much for coming to Lawmen Live here at Cheerful, Earful Comedy Podcast Festival. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. You know what? If you want to do an entertaining and educational podcast, Alistair, that's the way to do it. Oh, I didn't even notice. You slipped it past me.

Well done. If you want more bonus extra things related to this podcast, I believe there's a Patreon, is that correct? That is correct. It's at patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. And would there be another live show coming up on Halloween itself? A hundred percent yes. If you listened to that and thought,

I could do a better job than that audience, prove it. Put your money where your mouth is. Come to the Bill Murray on the 31st of October. 2022. Not for a fight, for a podcast. put your money where your mouth is come to the Bill Murray on the 31st of October 2022 not for a fight, for a podcast it's the night before all saints and all through the house

everyone was spooky even the mouse even the spooky mouse spooky little mouse in a tiny little handkerchief. The mouse is always wearing a handkerchief like a ghost's outfit. Like a sheet, because that would be the equivalent of a sheet for a mouse. That's adorable. That doesn't look spooky at all.