Watch their faces - and not only of the children. See how quickly the expressions change, now concerned, now sad, now sympathetic, now apprehensive, now laughing -but mostly laughing. The greatest actors in the land can learn from Punch. Before the curtain rises everybody knows that he is about to commit more murders than Bluebeard and are delighted at the prospect of watching him do them - a slap over the head with his club, a spin around it, then up into the air with them and away. One after the other they are disposed of and old Punch struts proudly around rejoicing in his wickedness.
Nobody cares tuppence for justice.
When the strong arm of the law is dealt with in similar fashion everybody laughs. What a play it is, too. Everybody in front of the show, except the very youngest, knows all the characters and the plot, but its appeal is such that it remains evergreen and ever exciting. Perhaps the showman may shove in a couple of guest acts like the Boxers or the Chinese Plate Spinners, but they only interrupt briefly the general massacre which runs its time honoured course. Only later did he acquire a wife, then called Joan, and only slowly did the plot of the Punch play as we know it today evolve.