Wonderful Audiences at Land’s End.

Prof Dan Bishop relates how he managed the restoration of one of Mr P’s old sites.

Last autumn I found myself feeling a little - well ‘depressed’ is the wrong word - no: aware of some kind of ‘void of dissatisfaction’ is more what I mean.
Should I take more tablets? Eat less? Drink less? Write a book? (Well I am getting my state pension now).
Then I realized what it was: after two seasons of working in mainland Europe much more than in the UK, I was missing my Land’s End pitch.

Back in my early days, in the 1970s, Punch’s pitch was on the sands of West Cornwall beaches. I live in an area in the far west of Cornwall with many fine, sandy holiday beaches and close access to north and south coasts, a perfect environment for those first ten years during which Mr Punch patiently showed me the ropes as I learned to be a Punch & Judy Man.

Then, in the mid 80s - whilst still active on the beaches - I also found a pitch at a major Cornish theme park where I could do what you can never do on the beach: namely entertain the Great British Public under cover whatever the weather. What’s more, I was paid per show so the audience had nothing to pay.

In 1996, I moved to a new pitch at Land’s End, where a bandstand was constructed to perform on, affording shelter for the audience, a very helpful acoustic, a central position and the stunning backdrop of the north Cornish coast where it meets the Atlantic.
The first time I set up the booth it was clear that my lazy tongs fit-up would be useless. Land’s End is a very exposed point and the winds would quickly make short work of a normal fit-up. (Mayday ! Mayday !).

I went straight home and began constructed an exact wooden replica of my booth, but very heavy and with wheels at the front so that it could be manoeuvred by tipping it forward and wheeling it like a cumbersome wheelbarrow. This lock-up booth has been very successful over the years, though there was one occasion when I was in mid performance (locked inside the ’old encumbrance’ - made even heavier with the weight of all the puppets and gear - not to mention me) when the gale force wind blowing at the time moved the whole thing an inch or so with me in it! [It’s a wonder it didn’t blow the audience away as well – Ed]

Then followed many happy seasons.

Until, in 2005 - to my great surprise - the management then in charge abruptly decided to dispense with my services. Since Mr Punch had always been and continued to be consistently popular with the crowds I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the decision but I suspect it was more to do with internal politics than serving the best interests of the punters. However, there it was.
Although this was to have been my 10th season there and my 30th season playing Punch & Judy in the South West, and although it was initially a disappointment, I wasn’t too perturbed, and saw it rather as an opportunity to explore new horizons, and in particular performing overseas. I take a proud pleasure in being a kind of ‘ambassador’ for Mr Punch’s tradition wherever I’m invited. Consequently the summers of ‘05 & ‘06 were busier than ever.

But then, last Autumn, in spite of the fact that the order book for my environmental puppet shows for schools was just as I wished it to be at this time in my life: ie less than it used to be but still active, and in spite of the fact that Mr. Punch had had a busy summer being driven 4,500 miles from festival to festival in Italy - in spite of all this, here I was missing my Land’s End pitch. Mr Punch had no permanent U.K. home.

I got to thinking, and remembered that the manager who had built the bandstand - which had proved so successful for Mr Punch - was now once again in overall charge, albeit from a base up country (as we d’ say down ‘ere). So I wrote to him explaining that for me something fundamental was missing and that in the previous two years I had realized that Mr Punch had performed far more overseas than in his own country. Hitherto I had always regarded these travels as ‘the icing on the cake’, but now it seemed as though it was all icing and very little cake…
Fortunately he proved as keen on Punch as he always had been, so my pitch was restored, just as I wished, during the high season in August this summer.

A month before returning there, I had an engagement with the Ghent Puppetbuskersfestival in Belgium. The audiences were certainly great and responded enthusiastically to Mr Punch, but when I got back to my old pitch at Land’s End, I had forgotten the level of audience rapport possible from Joe Public on holiday and the degree of excitement Mr Punch can generate with a British audience. Absolutely great.

So here we are, nearly at the end of what has been a wonderful season at Land’s End - a pretty well perfect environment for visitors to re-acquaint themselves and their children with our 345 year old Punch & Judy heritage.
That’s the way………