This photo is of some of The Jovial Crew, taken at Woodchester Mansion at Beltain. This is a mumming side, pulled together for a non-traditional play that I wrote to include a mix of traditional and local character, plus the villain of the piece, Baron De Peffle. I'm not in the play, but I ended up in the photo (back row on the left). I have no recollection of what Robin and I were plotting when the photo was taken.
Robin gave me a list of possible characters to work with, and the play itself was something of a collaboration. I do better often when I have people to work with, or for. This was not my first mumming play - during my Midlands period I wrote a number of non-traditional plays using local figures, folklore figures and place names as characters, as well as versions of several Arthurian stories - Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain and the Loathly Lady, Gawain and the Invisible Knight. I like mumming as a form - the short and anarchic nature of it, the invitation to improvisation and audience participation.
One of the things Robin Burton and I have in common is a love for playing with tradition. It's proved a good basis for collaboration. If all you can do is replicate the folk-things previous people were doing, what you have is a museum piece. Folk is supposed to be alive. Mummers used to disguise themselves in no small part so that they could do satire, poke fun at authority and critique those with power. For that to be relevant, you have to bring in elements of what's happening now, which we've done with this play.
With protest increasingly difficult in the UK, and some aspects of it being criminalised, we're going to need the means to come at issues sideways, and the means to engage people.
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