He’s been doing this since he was four years old. By seven, he had his first Mr Punch. By eleven, he was performing to hundreds of people in Covent Garden. Now, at 23, Tommy Bradshaw, or Professor Bradshaw if you want to stay on his good side, is one of the most beloved acts in the Latitude Family Area, and he’s been packing out his booth for years.
The story starts, as so many good ones do, with a Halloween party. Tommy’s mum was planning one for her three young kids in Ipswich, the weather was grim, and she had a houseful of children and no plan. She found a local entertainer in the Yellow Pages, a woman based just ten minutes away in Claydon, Suffolk, who turned up and did Punch and Judy, magic, and balloons. Tommy was transfixed.
“I just fell in love with it from then,” he says. “It was so funny. It was amazing. And I just thought, yeah, I want to do that.”
His parents didn’t brush it off as a phase. Every Christmas and birthday after that, there’d be a new puppet under the tree. Gradually, he says, “the cast just built up.” His mum would drive him to shows before he could drive himself. His dad built his first booth by hand. And that entertainer from Claydon? She’s now a lifelong friend who has made most of his theatre and puppets, and they still work together.
Inside the booth
Most people, when they watch a Punch and Judy show, never get much of a look at the person making it happen. That’s by design. From inside his theatre, Tommy can see the audience perfectly through a one-way screen, their faces, their reactions, the exact moment a joke lands. But to them, he’s invisible until the curtain comes down.
It’s a tight operation in there. Puppets are arranged all around him, props in front. Once a character is done, it’s put aside and not touched again. The swazzle, the small device held in the mouth that gives Mr Punch his distinctive squawking voice, stays in throughout. Three shows a day, 25 minutes each. In the summer heat.
“I’d say the worst part of it is the heat,” he admits. “But I since put a fan in there, which keeps me fairly regulated.” Everything else, he says, is second nature. “If I had a blindfold on, I’d know where everything is.”
Keeping it fresh
Don’t expect a Victorian museum piece. Tommy’s show has evolved with the times and he’s deliberate about that. “The last thing you want is something outdated,” he says. Like pantomime, his show picks at current events and trends, layering in material for the adults alongside the slapstick aimed at the kids. “There is plenty of innuendo in my show,” he says cheerfully, “and it just brushes straight over the kids’ heads.”
Past editions have featured a Donald Trump puppet who, naturally, ends up on the wrong end of Mr Punch’s slapstick. The traditional bones are all there, the crocodile, the baby, the policeman, but Tommy reads his crowd and adjusts. “If the audience seems quiet and shy, it’ll be more child-friendly, a bit more tame. But if you get a nice roaring crowd of families all sitting there watching? I’ll go all out. They’ll have the lot.”
He’s had a few years to get his Latitude audience figured out. And by his own description, they are very much a “go all out” crowd.
More than a show
After the last performance of the day, Tommy doesn’t disappear. He comes out with Mr Punch, swazzle in mouth, for photos and meet-and-greets. It’s become part of the ritual, and he clearly loves it.
He’s also thinking about the long game. Punch and Judy, he says, was once talked about as a dying art form. He doesn’t see it that way at all. He sits on the committee of the Punch and Judy Fellowship and what he’s seeing is growth. “There’s more people doing it now than there ever has been, especially younger performers. I’m 23 years old. There are people as young as 10, 11, 12 doing it as well.”
He did a birthday party last September. A young boy was completely mesmerised. A month later, his mum sent a photo: the boy had been given his first Mr Punch for his birthday. “I was amazed,” Tommy says. “I’m glad I’ve been able to help with that madness.”
The madness, in the very best sense, continues this summer at Henham Park. Catch Professor Bradshaw in the Family Area, three times a day, every day. And if your child comes home demanding a puppet of their own, well. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Professor Bradshaw performs three times daily in the Family Area. After each show, stay for the chance to meet Mr Punch in person. Just follow the squawking.
