around the world with mr. punch

I'm chronicling this unfolding tale to get it out of my system. It will take you into the labyrinth of UK local authority officialdom where the spirit of Bumble the Beadle is to be found alive and well in the 21st Century. Indeed, the overlapping multi-tiered, multi-directorate, Policy,Strategy and Directive driven empires that thrive inside a Civic Centre have created an ecological niche in which bumbledom thrives, flourishes and mutates into bizarre new forms. The pens of Dickens and Lewis Carroll in tandem are needed to pin these New Bumbles down in their absurdities. This blog can only point you to the inkwell into which the satirists could dip their pens. Mr. Punch is at the heart of my story, and the tale starts here.

It began in the Spring of 2009 when Worthing Town Council advertised for potential seafront entertainers to step forward as part of an initiative to bring a helping of vibrancy to a quiet promenade. This led to Mr. Punch having a jolly time during the Summer as detailed in previous postings. A parallel attempt to bring Mr. Punch to the seafront at Brighton - a few miles along the coast - ran straight into a bureaucratic jungle. I'd seen my first ever Punch show in Brighton as a child, my parents had been seaside entertainers there in the 1930s, I'd performed there myself in the 1960s and the 1980s and my daughter Katey (Prof. Peanuts) was now a resident. The City of Brighton & Hove (to give it its full title) is officially busker friendly and has a page on its website about the 'do's and don'ts' of busker courtesies. Did the busker friendly policy extend to the beach front as well as the town centre?

We rang to ask and the moment it became clear we were not musicians or jugglers but a Punch & Judy Show we were immediately passed like a hot potato from one department to another. From the Licensing Department to the Seafront Office to the Event Team and back to the Licensing Department for another lap. Eventually no-one could find a reason why we couldn't take Punch & Judy to the seafront zone and were told to get on with it and see how it went. Thus, when Summer came we selected a potential pitch and telephoned the Seafront Office the day before as a courtesy to say we'd be down tomorrow. However, it was back to square one with a vengeance. We explained we had already been sent from Licensing to the Event Team to the Seafront Office and back round the circle some months ago. This time we were told categorically that whoever had told us to go ahead no longer worked there. Vague references to 'health and safety considerations' were raised along with the appalled comment that 'it might attract a crowd' and that "the pitching of tents was prohibited". Finally the official on the phone referred to her superior who sent a message saying "No. It's not the kind of thing we want. A decision has been taken in the past." No further discussion was permitted. The phone call was terminated by a council worker with no interest in hearing further. A red rag to a bull? You bet.

I emailed the Leader of the Council to raise the issue of censorship - no reply. I emailed the Councillor responsible for Culture and the Arts - no reply. I wrote to the Mayor who replied courteously offering to hear my concerns. I thanked her and offered Mr. Punch's services to the Mayor's Charity and duly performed at a fund raising Fish & Chip Supper with the Mayor and other councillors present. By now it was September and the end of the 2009 season. The show went very well and the Mayor's secretary subsequently wrote to say that my concerns had now been forwarded to the Head of Culture and Economy.

It's worth a pause to say that the toxic shadow of a previous Prof still cast a chill in certain quarters. The late Sgnt. Stone (who probably would have relished being considered in the 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' category) had been very publicly banned from the seafront in 2000 - after decades as Brighton's Punch and Judy man - when his self-destructive battle with alcohol made him a liability to the other traders. Mike Stone made out that it was Mr. Punch who was being banned, not him, and gained national publicity. Mike (who went on to drink himself to a relatively early death) was a gifted Prof still revered in certain Brighton circles as a legendary local character: a status conferred by such exploits of his as occasionally performing blind drunk and stark naked in his booth whilst swearing at his puppets, or drunkenly insulting the American ambassador's wife at an arts function where he was working as a temporary waiter. A decade later the fall-out from his stint on the seafront was still in the atmosphere. Meanwhile Brighton's newly conferred status as a city had given rise to new bureaucracies within its workings. It had six Directorates: each Director controlling up to eight Departments each with its own Departmental Head and officers. Above them all sat a Head of Executive Office and a Chief Executive. I was invited in to meet the Arts and Cultural Development Officer.

Having been outside the castle trying to attract attention, the drawbridge was now lowered so I could cross the moat and enter. (Whilst the Civic Centre doesn't actually have a moat and drawbridge it does have a security turnstile for staff access and a series of hand sanitisation points like upon entering a hospital. The parallel is striking if unintentional. Keeping bureaucrats safe and secure from the great unwashed was a revealing corporate message to be sending I thought). Chatting about Punch and Judy, however, to someone with an arts background, as well as interest in street arts, made for a pleasant meeting. The officer was happy to facilitate further progress within the bureaucratic structure. She arranged a joint meeting with colleagues who worked within the very Licensing/Seafront/Event carousel I'd been round a few times already. On the day of the meeting, however, she was off sick so Katey and I sat in what seemed like a small interrogation room whilst a Manager for Sports and Leisure Projects and a Leisure Development Officer With Responsibility for the Seafront grilled us about Punch and Judy and how we would deal with complaints about it. (The underlying assumption being that complaints were only to be expected).

References were made to the councils Multi-Agency Policy and Procedures for Safeguarding the Vulnerable, as well as Health and Safety, Risk Assessments, Public Liability and Criminal Record Bureau checks. We countered by quoting the councils Refreshed Strategy for the Visitor Economy (it's great what you can download from council websites) as well as with Mr. Punch’s debating points well honed over the years. It did feel at times like defending Shakespeare from charges of glamourising knife crime on account of all those swordfights and stabbings - but we all remained friendly. It was, we were told, so that they could argue a case on our behalf to their superiors. I did learn en route, however, that busking was only permitted for one hour in any given spot. A particularly rigid interpretation of a "suggested' guideline on their website. If my booth remained in the same spot on the beach for more than one hour - even if I wasn't performing- it would be deemed to constitute an Event. Events have to be Licensed as they are not Busking. Everything might yet have "to be put out to public tender." These are the folk, remember, who are going to be arguing MY case to THEIR superiors. These superiors are not even in the same Directorate as the Arts and Cultural Development Officer we had first met. That officer was ultimately overseen by the Director of Culture and Enterprise and rubbed shoulders with colleagues in Library Services, Tourism, Museums and the like. The Sports and Leisure officers, however, report up through a chain command headed by a Director of Environment along with colleagues in Trading Standards, Sustainable Transport and a whole host of other departments including those responsible for refuse collection.

We'd been helpfully sent down one rabbit hole by the Mayor but had crossed into a parallel rabbit hole whose Head Bunnies would now pass judgment on what I (and, clearly, the Mayor) consider to be a question belonging elsewhere. There’ll be a Mad Hatter along in a minute, I'm sure, to sort it all out. I've already pointed out that it's not Mr. Punch's fault that he doesn't fit current local authority pigeonholes - and also drawn gleeful attention to the fact that he is older and more famous than the iconic Brighton Pavilion which put the town on the map in Regency times and which is the city’s official logo and cultural shrine.

Some nine months on from the start of the quest it is still proceeding with all the speed at which I can drive it. Mr. Punch has time on his side, though: centuries of it. So watch this rabbit hole for more reports from Wonderland where Bumble the Beadle can wrap censorship and prejudice in managerial babble-speak and red tape in an attempt to make it all sound a helpful by-product of common sense. Maybe it needs need not only Dickens and Lewis Carroll to do it justice but George Orwell too.