Guignol sur le Front

Guignol on the front line with French troops.

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

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