THE DEVIL AND MISTER PUNCH Improbable at Barbican Pit

Punch made his first recorded appearance in London 350 years ago. That inveterate theatregoer, Samuel Pepys, saw a performance in Covent Garden on May 9, 1622. Julian Crouch’s production, aimed at adults, is the most innovative take on the hook-nosed serial killer I have seen since Lindsay Kemp’s and Harrison Birtwistle’s respective versions. Punch ends up in hell and offers the Devil a holiday, saying he will stand in for him in his absence. En route there are a number of diversions, including a crocodile with halitosis, a dog who typewrites, dancing piglets, a love-sick bull who falls in love with a female matador, and a fight between two warriors in full medieval armour, the latter a tribute to Orlando Furioso and Sicilian puppetry.