Is Mr. Punch too old fashioned for today's tastes and today's society? No way. Old Red Nose is having a grand old time as he enters the 21st Century and the The Punch & Judy College of Professors is pleased to be playing its part. You'll find Mr. Punch in shopping centres, at festivals, fetes, galas, childrens' parties and street festivals as well as in arts centres, municipal parks. museums, schools and - yes - even still at the seaside.

There is a saying amongst Punch performers that "Punch is too old to die" and certainly his antics still have today's young and old alike in fits of merriment just as they have for the past few centuries. He is constantly renewing himself and his particular brand of anarchic knockabout nonsense strikes a chord in every new generation that meets him. Punch is an immortal figure from world culture who thumbs his nose at convention, gives those in authority a sound walloping with his trusty slapstick and - in the classic version of the story - defeats even the Devil himself. It's a moral tale if ever there was one even though its heady message is not always approved of by the self-elected guardians of public morality who would prefer him to obey the rules of polite society rather than stand them on their head to comic effect. But whether the detractors of Mr. Punch clothe themselves in the language of Victorian moral outrage or of 20th Century Politically Correct fundamentalism their voices are drowned out by the gales of laughter the slapstick show produces. It is a small scale masterpiece of popular folk drama and as likely to promote a harmful message as Romeo and Juliet is to promote teenage suicide.

Today Mr. Punch's show is primarily regarded as an entertainment for children although at every show you will find adults in the audience chuckling along in appreciation of the deeper truths being expressed. Punch is capable of moving children to uncontrollabe fits of laughter as his topsy-turvey little wooden world unfolds its long running drama. Crocodiles, clowns, strings of sausages, policemen, slapsticks, ghosts and devils all have their part to play in the never-ending story presided over by Punch and Judy themselves.

There are several hundred Punch and Judy Professors (as they are known) in Great Britain today, ranging from the hobbyists and part time childrens's entertainers through to the professional performers who play the show throughout the country as well as at festivals around the world. It is important, therefore, to remember that not all shows are the same. They are a reflection of the individual performer. For Mr. Punch this diversity is both his strength and his weakness. The strength is that there is no shortage of hands to carry his tradition forward: the weakness is that not all those hands may be able to perform with adequate skill. As with any other performing art the audience must learn to judge the player as well as the play.