• Based: London
• Website: www.robertstyles.com

I am proud to say that I learned the show as a boy from my father, John in the late 1970s and have continued to perform it ever since. I am based in central London but have performed all over the UK in the last thirty years including invitations abroad to puppet festivals in Europe and Japan. Wherever I go, what attracts audiences to Punch’s candy-striped theatre is the promise of fun and laughter.

As a family entertainer I have performed at birthday parties, weddings, garden centres, shopping malls, farmers’ markets and large open-air events; in an education capacity I have been asked to perform and give talks to children in schools and museums. I have provided puppetry sequences for film & TV and also built a reputation for ‘adult’ Punch & Judy requested for corporate events, theme nights and private functions. Outside of the summer season, Mr Punch and the spirit of pantomime naturally inherent to the show is equally popular at Christmas and Dickensian-themed events.

For me a Punch & Judy show should be an escape, a folly, a diversion from the humdrum - both a slapstick comedy and a folk tale where good triumphs over evil. It should be a romp with sausages, a zoo with crocodiles and a circus with clowns – a sit-com where life is turned upside down and inside out. Above all, it must uphold its ancient 350 year old tradition and guarantee classic British entertainment for both the young and the young at heart.

Like every College ‘Professor’ I am passionate about Punch and remain eternally grateful to him, my father and this particular society. Through them I have found something in myself I might not have discovered otherwise.