The Swazzle (Part Two)

The Swazzle – Mr. Punch’s Voice – Part Two

Now let’s turn to the Swazzle’s use. Do you have to use one? And ‘no’ has to be the obvious answer but consider this. Once mastered, the Swazzle saves your vocal chords. Many a time my voice has given way, through over use or having a cold and I’ve swazzled my way out of trouble. Yes, there may be an issue of clarity but, and this is important, the Punch sound is so distinctive, that the mere noise of it in a public place, will be sufficient to drum up a crowd. Do not underestimate the volume and draw the Swazzle provides, Others may squeak a voice, wrecking their vocal chords in the process, but you should be better than that, Oft-times ‘experts’ have written that the hard way is often actually the easier way and so it is with learning and using, the swazzle.

In a similar vein, it is for this reason Glyn Edwards has written; ‘don’t put your best bits into the first five minutes of your show. Let the swazzle do its stuff’. Mr, Punch appears, bouncing around, squawking away, fooling around, this will enthral your audience, gather a crowd and raise the level of expectation providing an ample opportunity for you to do your stuff (give of your best).

Now there is a counter argument. I’ve worked alongside very entertaining non-swazzled shows that have surpassed my own in engagement and audience size and much to my chagrin – success. There may be many reasons for this – but not least of which is the understandability issue but, and I believe this is an indisputable truism, Punch is the Swazzle and the swazzle is Mr. Punch. There are ‘Profs’ who will swazzle with no Mr. Punch in sight and there are ‘Profs’ who will put their hand into the punch-glove with no swazzle to hand (or mouth) but for me, the two are inseparable – The one cannot exist without the other.

Conversely the late great Joe Beeby swazzled both Judy and Punch although how he swapped the male swazzle over for a female swazzle I will never know. (If you don’t get that, you’re reading the wrong book!)

Alright let us now talk tape.

When the first couple of how to do it Punch books were written, you could go into any haberdashery, shell out for Indian Block Tape number 3, cut it to length and away you’d go. Oh, for it only be that easy today. The trouble is white tape is now bleached and/or dyed rendering it unsuitable for our purposes.

In Edwards: ‘Around The World’ magazine, a contributor talked in terms of cutting a small sample piece of tape off a reel, floating it on a saucer of water and if it sinks, pursue its use most vigoursly. Sorry (and I mean that) this is an on-going quest and where-ever I went, I always went into the local drapers and bought a sample to try it out. Even failures shouldn’t yet be discarded. Take it home, boil it (pan of boiling water) and see if you can boil out the problem. If the tape’s weave is tight then ‘you’ may achieve something workable. Once cooled pull it and stretch it – we’ll talk about abusing the swazzle later on but for now – you owe it to yourself to ‘work’ this tape until you are certain it’s fit only for the bin. Tie the swazzle, retie it and try to make it work. If you are satisfied, then rush off and  buy a quantity – if you are delighted – buy the entire stock. If you are disgusted or worse, depressed, throw it away but keep looking. Sooner or later, someone, somewhere, will tip you off and when they do, buy a sample, try it and act quickly.