Close, but no cigar.

First pair: both groups have

- blacked-up faces
- hats
- jackets and ties

But that's about it. The group on the Left have

- beards
- glasses
- no white eye-sockets or lips
- no white gloves
- no one outfit
- nothing spangly, sparkly or showbiz-y
- no jazz hands
- no cheery smiles

Second pair: on the left is a solo dancer striking an exaggerated, hand-waving pose while wearing patched and ragged shirt, trousers, jacket and hat. On the right is someone participating in a group dance, not doing anything to draw attention to him as an individual, wearing an elaborate tatter coat and a hat with feathers along with a perfectly ordinary shirt, trousers and waistcoat.

I'm not saying minstrelsy didn't feed into border Morris and/or Molly dancing - I think it almost certainly did. But if that's the problem, it's always going to be there - changing the way we do border Morris now won't make it go away. What I am saying is that the similarities between minstrel outfits and present-day border Morris get-up are pretty minimal.