a revisited Punch for elders

Brett Rogers being told off by Joan, with Rosie Grayson. Photo Peter Mathew

Joan and Judy is a touring show for aged care centres, designed in response to the residents’ wishes. Initially we baulked at the idea of Punch and Judy, but the memory triggers are strong for those who remember it from their childhoods, on beaches and at fairs. So we hacked it.

A travelling troupe rolls into the aged care centre with their Brighton-style folding theatre, and attempt to stage a Punch and Judy show. But Joan (The alternative historical name for Judy, who in our minds has outlasted Punch and become a matriarch) crashes the show with her reminiscences, each tale a tangent from an iconic Punch and Judy reference – sausages, crocodile, doctor, dog.

We had priceless input from local royalty Basil and Janet Smith of Smith’s Puppets: the designs for costumes and cart were an homage to their work. They spent decades touring their show in a tiny ornate Gypsy wagon, and carry the centuries-old Punch history and ethos. Where we initially saw domestic violence and facile humour, we learned to respect the English Punch tradition through their tales: working class, endlessly adaptive and irreverent, renegade and sometimes on the run from the bobbies.

Terrapin’s Forever Young program recently received an Impact Award, from PAC Australia .

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