Guignol sur le Front

To mark Armistice Day, here is an image of front line troops of “the Great War” enjoying the French version of Punch & Judy with Guignol as Punch, not only entertaining troops, but satirically, as a stand-in for political leaders of the time.

The image is from the archives of the Museum of Puppetry in Lyon (Musée Gadagne  / Musée des arts de la marionette).

The stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse later provided a wonderful opportunity to use puppets to recreate a moving story from World War I.  The story behind that stage production can be found in this Guardian article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/aug/19/how-we-made-war-horse