Much to the editor's disgust, not only do computers juggle better than S/He does, but now there's a bloody puppet that does as well. The creature in question is on our front cover, belongs to Parachute Theatre, and here Lynne of that ilk sticks her hand up the bum of that and other related acts. Delighted to read yet another extract from Walter Wilkinson's 1927 tale of Punch and Judy showman 'The Peep Show' and even more delighted that the Catch team still have faculties enough to remember that far back! I have been reading The Catch since its inception and although I thoroughly enjoy reading of astounding juggling, exhilarating circus and wild street theatre,where oh where (apart from dear old Walter) is the dolly waving?

My own introduction to the grand old art of puppetry came by way of a luurve interest some twelve years ago. The boyfriend (Nik) was en route to mime school and wanted to build a portable Punch and Judy show to scrounge a few extra Francs outside that big pipe building in Paris. He asked me, a sculptor/writer of no repute whatsoever, to make the heads, and drawn together as we were through a common love of 2000AD comics, Punch started to bear an uncanny resemblance to Rogue Trooper and became 'Punk'. Judy in most traditional shows is a rather downtrodden put-upon old bag and well, we couldn't have that now could we? So our Judy developed into a pointy-titted bitch in a fab outfit.

Up until this point my interest in Punch and Judy had been nil, but now we had to bang out some sort of storyboard so it was time to do a bit of research. First thing we discovered was that Punch has a long and colourful history that, from an Italian origin,has spread to many European countries, all with their own version. But the point that fascinated us both was that during Oliver Cromwell's ban on theatre, puppet theatre was not deemed important enough and as a result, puppets became the satirical 'spokespersons' of the people.

This information coloured the outcome of our own show and although we kept faithfulish to the trad. show, we went overboard with vegetarian ovens, Judy's liberation and a large dollop of modern-day toilet humour. The problem was we had so much fun building wild and wacky puppets and props we could not fit them in a traditional puppet booth, and ended up building a 6-metre-wide stage set with all the trims. "Oh bugger!" said Nik, "No chance of extra Francs outside that big pipe building in Paris with this lot." (Nik did actually go to mime school for a spell but decided he was far happier making the tree than being one!) Some twelve years, more kids and another seven different shows later, we are still performing 'Punk...'. It just seems that folks, whether they love or hate Punch, deride him for his violence, or adore him for his noisy traditional appearance at do's large and small, are still fascinated by the characters either in a modern version such as ours or the traditional booth.

Ours is not the only 'different' version of the old story; some years ago, we saw several at the international Jan Klassen festival in Amsterdam. Jan Klassen is the Dutch Punch and we remember a rollicking performance by Wim Kerhove which features Judy in the main role, dealing with a nuclear bomb and eviction, amongst other social issues that Wim managed to get off his chest whilst entertaining delightfully at the same time. The other show we shall never forget was Paolo Conentail from Granteatrino Puppet Theatre, Italy. you could say that the social issues were on a slightly different level: Pulcinella consumes a carafe of wine, urinates over the audience, eats with great relish a whole chicken, grows fatter and fatter, then gives birth to a baby Pulcinella: wonderful stuff!

Nowadays of course there is a lot more than just Punch and Judy on the streets, from small booth shows to large spectacles, huge processional stuff to the marvellous No Strings Puppet Theatre's 'Robin Hood and the Monk' that is simply a tray-like stage hung around the puppeteers neck with small glove puppets operated inside, the puppeteer providing the voices and sound effects as he goes - and very entertaining it is too. Last year we saw Green Ginger's wonderful Gaston, a French portrait painter operated by two puppeteers that use their own hands for the puppet's hands. The puppet keeps up a running dialogue with the audience half in French and half in English, while drawing a credible portrait of the poor punter pulled out of the audience for that purpose. It's a great piece of street theatre that gives the audience a real situation to gawp at and/or heckle as they wish.

We use a similar style of puppet, in as much as it's our own hands for the puppet's hands, not in this instance to be able to draw but to be able to juggle. Juggling puppets have also been around for a long time, mainly as trick marionettes where the balls as well as the puppets are operated by strings, or as glove puppets. Most notable are the Chinese plate-spinning puppets. These honour the golden rule of puppetry: do with the puppet what an actor, or in this case a juggler, cannot do; the piece ends with the stick for the plate through the puppet's head and the puppet itself spinning. The Chinese master puppeteer, Yang Feng, also performs a circus piece where the glove puppets themselves are juggled with great dexterity. The puppeteer throws the puppets from hand to hand in front of the audience, maintaining all the small movements that give the puppets life, and yet turning the characters into the most mobile and believable acrobats. Very skilful and totally beyond us.

Looking to create our own juggling puppets, marionettes were out (we're not together enough to keep the strings untangled) and glove puppets were too small (and not too clever) for our purpose. We like working on waist-high stage tops with full figure characters on top, with us behind in black, set against a black backdrop, this style helped us to create our ten-minute piece The British Tourist, a rather sad be-anoraked character who, on refusing to share his lunch with a duck, gets shat upon ( amazing what you can do with a bit of felt fabric and a can of shaving foam), dries the said anorak on a makeshift washing line, tightrope-walks the washing line, discovers the performer within, all very profound...not...and then into juggling routine. This is all helped enormously by the fact that it's Nik's own hands for the puppet and he's been juggling round the back of marquees for years. Simple 3-ball tricks aren't too much of a problem (although you try it with a black bag over your head) and our character can just about turn 5 around for the finale, but one of the best bits is when he rotates his head right around and sticks it between his legs while still juggling (give it a whirl, Haggis).

So enthused we are with this type of puppet that we have used the style and the juggling in our latest show, and continue to haul our puppets out of the van at weird and wonderful venues up and down the country, theatres, festivals, shopping centres, the odd juggling convention and the most fun of all the street itself...

Not so different eh Walter!!