MALWBO pulled a capacity crowd into Hexham's Forum Cinema on Sunday afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and so did everyone I spoke with afterwards. Before the show, dancing in the Market Square by several North-Eastern sides also attracted a large and enthusiastic audience, many of whom joined in a massed Circassian Circle after the final display dance.

The Forum is one of those civilised cinemas that not only has a bar, but also allows patrons to take their (plastic) glasses into the auditorium. This facility enhanced many people's enjoyment of the movie, and the few who over-indulged only added to the entertainment as they jingled to and from the loo during the performance.

Now that my euphoria has subsided a little, I suspect the film will not achieve the same level of success as other recent movies about plucky small-town Brits fighting for a good cause, like "Calendar Girls", "Brassed Off", or "The Full Monty". It lacks the high surface gloss those movies displayed, and the environment it's set in will be less comprehensible to a mass audience. But given the relative inexperience of its makers, and the miniscule budget they were working with, the film is a very remarkable achievement. I'm sure that it will earn itself a respectable niche in British movie history.

All in all, a good day for the Morris, and for the folk arts in general - now the challenge is to follow it up by getting more people interested, and involved, in them.

Wassail!