1. In August 2001, the Royal Mail launched a set of six Punch and Judy stamps.

2. In 1967, renowned English composer Harrison Birtwistle wrote an opera called Punch And Judy.

3. In America, baseball batters who are not considered very powerful are sometimes called “Punch and Judy hitters”.

4. Punch magazine introduced the term “curate's egg” into the English language, when referring to something that is partly good and partly bad.

5. In 2001, Chesterfield councillors ordered that Punch and Judy shows at its annual medieval fayre should tone down the violence.

6. In the 1979 general election, the Liberal Party produced a campaign poster portraying the Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan as Punch and Tory leader Margaret Thatcher as Judy, with the caption “Say No to Punch and Judy politics – Liberal co-operation works better”.

7. The text of Punch and Judy was first written down and published by J P Collier in 1827.

8. Charles Dickens once defended Punch and Judy shows, saying they were “a harmless extravagant relief from reality”.

9. In the Henry Fielding novel Tom Jones, the eponymous hero meets a Punch and Judy man who has removed all the violence from the show, claiming it is “moral and refined” – then proceeds to get drunk and attack his assistant.

10. In May 2004, Ronnie Alden, a Punch and Judy Professor for more than 60 years, was banned from performing his show at a Shropshire primary school because it was deemed to be too violent.