Judy
| Punch and Judy characters: | Punch - Judy - The Baby - The Clown - The Constable - The Hangman - The Devil - The Crocodile - The Doctor - The Forgotten Characters |
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Judy or Joan (as she was originally known) is a pivotal character who shares half of the show's title.
Various Professors will choose to present her relationship with Punch in different ways, some will show it as a loving one, with her a nice wife and tragic victim, while others will have her as just as antagonistic as her husband in an attempt to to make Punch's crimes seem more justified. Similarly, in modern times Punch's mistress Pretty Polly has been phased out of the show making the relationship less one sided.
Regardless of presentation, Judy's role is to leave The Baby in Punch's care and return to find it either dead or missing, at which point she will be furious with her husband and after an exchange that will be either verbal or physical, will end up a victim of his "Slap Stick", which then leads to more problems with the Constable/Beadle, The Hangman and so forth.
In some variations of the play Judy will return after she is dead to haunt Punch as a ghost.
