mummers in larkrise

Subject: mummers in larkrise
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 04:28 PM

BBC never fail to make a mess of a well documented tradition and excelled in the portrayal of mumming the George play. the actors playing the part of the mummers could have made a better job of acting the play and sticking to a george play with all the parts or is it too much to ask to remember the lines.
i expected them to cry off the blacking up part of the tradition but playing women in the part is not on,also george did not need to be in kit for a week before hand

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: michaelr
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 04:54 PM

Could we please have this post translated for the benefit of Americans? `Tis cryptic, `tis.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 05:08 PM

See the other Lark Rise thread This series is about comfortable Sunday evening viewing, not promoting traditional pastimes.

In tonight's episode, Laura as the doctor was in effect blacked up, and Queenie as the dragon was disguised by a dragon's head.

Kitty

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 05:22 PM

Funny thing is - I have never seen a dragon in a mumming or pace-egg play. It is alluded to but never actualy seen. In the ones I have seen and been involved with George fights Slasher, the black or Turkish knight and Hector - but never a dragon.

Still, like it was said earlier, it is just BBC entertaiment. Nearly but not quite like a pace-egg:-)

In comes I, Beelzebub...

:D

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Tradsinger
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 05:29 PM

Saw the episode and agree with the posting. The whole series sounds very fake to me, with Mummerset accents and overhyped emotion. It certainly doesn't make me feel that I am in 19th Century Oxfordshire. As a period drama, it just doesn't work for me.

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 06:18 PM

sorry michealr mumming in America means something else,
Bradshaw Mummers have a dragon in the george play (look up Bradshaw mummers on the internet to see what i mean)
Kitty not asking for promotion but as it is well documented it may as well be reasonably accurate without being pedantic
out goes i

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Alan Day
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 06:19 PM

I am with you Herga, it is about comfortable Sunday Evening pastime, it was not listed as a documentary, so therefore a bit of imagination has been used. It did however introduce a very large number of viewers
to watching a Mummers play inaccurate as it may have been. How many of you can get so worked up over a bit of light entertainment beats me, to sit there watching a programme with the express purpose of picking holes it it, I just cannot understand. Herga and I will watch it , notice a few (or even a number of inaccuracies )and it will not spoil our evening at all. If I see a TV in the cottage or a gas fire it may cause a few laughs. I might even write to Herga to see if she noticed it.
Al

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 06:28 PM

will Joe attach this thread to the original one please

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 06:30 PM

As I said on the other thread, I don't believe there's anyone who wouldn't be bothered by any anachronism in a period drama - if Queenie was seen knapping a stone axe or George entered on a hoverboard we'd all think something was amiss. People who know an area well (e.g. mummer's plays) are more likely than the rest of us to be bothered by mishandling of that area - I don't think that means those people are hypersensitive humourless pedants.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Alan Day
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 06:47 PM

Pip- George entering on a hoverboard , now that really is imagination !!
I go to bed smiling
Al

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 04:33 AM

I don't think that means those people are hypersensitive humourless pedants.

I caught only the beginning, but I predicted a minor Mudcat outrage before switching off. Thing is, was this depiction of a Mummer's Play any less Traditional than any other Mummers Play depicted as part of the humourless pedantry that is the Folk Revival and which Lark Rise has come to resemble in all its sepia tinted prissyness? It's all bogus so why worry?

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Darowyn
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:09 AM

It is worth pointing out that the mummers play in a fictional village contains whatever characters the scriptwriter cares to include.
In the Re-imagined village on a thread elsewhere, the traditional, equal opportunities, Mummers play always includes the Countess Bathory, Boadicea (spelled that way), Cleopatra, Jack the Ripper, Werner Heisenberg, and David Beckham (killed in the first act by most of the previous).
The highlight of the play is the song battle between Beelzebub and the Demonettes, doing the Doo-Wop version of the Lords Prayer backwards, and the slick Rappping and Hip Hop moves of Sweeny and the Mudcat crew doing "The Cutty Wren."
Something useful might have come from the programmme though.
Perhaps one could start to refer to those people who just stare, eyes bulging, at something that challenges their ideas, and moan "It's just WRONG!" as 'Twisters'.
If there were smilies I'd add one here.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:22 AM

Ah, but squeezeboxhp, Bradshaw mummers are from Yorkshire. It is a well know fact that the land east of the Pennines is marked on all sensible maps as 'Here theyre be Dragons' :-)

Besides, it says on the web site that they are a street theatre group. That's not proper mumming. Street theatre sounds vaguely entertaining. while mumming is purely an excuse to wave swords about, wear funny clothes and get pissed...

:D (eG)

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: GUEST,Gadaffi
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:34 AM

Yawn! Time to re-read The Return of the Native, methinks- oh, and Doctor Syn while we're at it.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:50 AM

Surely anyone who takes Mumming seriously has left 'The Tradition'?

L in C
AKA St G, Slasher, Little billie thingy, Doctor, Doctor it's ma leg, Miss
Kittie Fair and other parts played by members of the cast

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: GUEST,Arfur Brain
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 06:18 AM

The Beerfordbury Mummers also have a dragon (Cecil by name) in our St George play ... admittedly it's not totally traditional!
AB (who plays Tosspot)

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 06:28 AM

Ok, OK - I stand corrected and apologise profusely. Dragons DO exist in Yorkshire and made up places:-) We got rid of 'em from Lancashire coz our St George is bigger than yours:-P

DeG

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 07:00 AM

We wrote an anarchic (in the best & worse senses of the word) Mummer's Play for Xmas festivities back around 1985 or so. Alas I no longer have the script, but I do remember one or two choice lines. The basic plot involved the Dragon killing Saint George, and the Devil grinding up his bones with excrement gathered from monastic latrines (with which he feeds the souls of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in hell). Somehow or other Good Doctor (Watson?) miraculously brings him back to life causing Old 'Oss to wryly observe:

How fitting it is that Saint George the Brit
Should be a man of powdered bone mixed with Holy shit

Who said the age of sharp social commentary was dead, or yet had no place in the - er - Trad Arts?

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 08:00 AM

Exlnt. In the great tradition of revivals this play should surely be re-written and performed on the next Tuesday after St Tosspot's Day

L in C

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 08:24 AM

mumming is purely an excuse to wave swords about, wear funny clothes and get pissed...

correct D e G

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Les from Hull
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 08:34 AM

Of course we've still got dragons in Yorkshire. It's called conservation.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Alan Day
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 08:41 AM

Broadwood Mummers play features a severed hand that crawls across the
play area after the sword fight. I hate to think what eruptions there would be here if that had been on the Lark Rise set.
"A few heart attacks " me thinks!
Al

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: EnglishFolkfan
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 09:00 AM

If that episode of' Larks no longer Rise from Candleford' caused just one non folkie viewer to investigate the 'villagers play' and discover our Mumming history then it was worth tenuously weaving into the story line. If it has made someone get off their sofa to actually go seek out a Mummers event then Well Done scriptwriter.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:04 AM

Oh god, here we go again.

It's not a history lesson, or a dramatic reconstruction. Its Sunday night telly, thats all.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: GUEST,taffedwards
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:22 AM

I play the Welsh dragon who gets slain by St George in the "Traditional Ewell Village Mummers' Play" every Boxing Day. The character gives the audience a chance to repeat "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndroblllantisiliogogogoch". We also have the Hoggsmille Troll which emerges from the river Hogsmill and one year year we had the North Pole Snow Queen (in real life a TV presenter from Norway).

And of course, we have the usual motley crew. Dr Good, Little Jack, Napoleon, Turkey Snipe, Bold Slasher, Santa Claus.

The point about mummers' plays surely is to give the punters what they want. We can get about 300 in the audience. If we kept to the "original" tradition, we'd have Old Nick wandering around with a huge phallus. NOT A PRETTY SIGHT.

Taff Edwards

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:24 AM

I'm all for live theatre and everybody should get the chance to see a Mummers Play but whether it's really much different from Larks is anybodies guess.

It is said that drama is life with the boring bits taken out.

L in C

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: bubblyrat
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:36 AM

" Bah ! Hamburg ! " I cried last night, although Karen seemed to quite enjoy it !! At least, the character "Twister" wasn't playing the banjo without moving the fingers on his laft hand !I do wish the smarmy little boy who lives with the Postmistress would be given a decent line occasionally,or could be seen pulling wings off butterflies or firing a catapult at the Vicar's greenhouse,or something else NORMAL just for once.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Cats
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 12:53 PM

There is a dragon in all of the Cornwall plays from 1755 to 1843 and we have great delight in killing him every year at Rillaton

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 02:21 PM

Also in Yorkshire, Green Oak Morrismen's pet dragon Erick is allowed to perform in their mummers play.
There seems to be a national infestation of Wurms, good job we also appear to have a surfeit of beknighted heroes.

As for Lark Rise, yes they get all the details wrong, but at least they aren't poking a finger and laughing at the idea of something traditional. The musicians and singers are regarded as a key component of the village and the community come out to watch, listen and join in. Surely this is something for us to applaud. If all they get is complaining they may decide it isn't worth even mentioning.
If the result of the programme is even one person looking further into folklore, or another melodeon or banjo being played, I personally could forgive a host of inaccuracies on a long winter Sunday night...

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 03:52 PM

The character gives the audience a chance to repeat "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndroblllantisiliogogogoch"

OMNES: "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndroblllantisiliogogogoch!"

Pip
also an Edwards, as it goes,
with distant family connections in Rhosllanerchrugog

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 05:04 AM

WEll said Geoff.. At least they are not poking fun at us.
Unlike the Mummers Play we performed in last Christmas as Batman/Father Christmas and Nora Batty/Mrs Christmas!! The audience enjoyed it and asked about the origins afterwards, job done!
For me Larkrise is still the best bit Of Telly I've seen for ages.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Paul Burke
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 06:30 AM

Please avoid trivial spelling errors in this forum: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwlllantisiliogogogoch

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 09:40 AM

For me Larkrise is still the best bit Of Telly I've seen for ages

I agree, it's almost the only television we watch and never off air. The actors are a jolly fine company. I'd love to see them perform the Cottesloe version - with the Albions doing music of course!

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 12:19 PM

Please avoid trivial spelling errors in this forum: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwlllantisiliogogogoch

Actually it's

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch

Duw, duw...

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 04:00 PM

Forgive me for being pedantic...I don't believe that breed of goose was around until well after the Folk Revival!!!

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 04:14 PM

Actually, it's Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, as any fule kno.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 04:24 PM

No it's not, it's Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.. Tsk, half asleep..

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 05:39 PM

'Tis but a tourist trap invention anyway so no tradition behind it. Perhaps we should not be discussing it!

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 05:41 PM

I agree.
I believe it was coined by a local clergyman, and I'd like to believe his brother was the local signwriter.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:21 AM

let's see what sort of a parody they make of the marbles game next week, are we sure that baler twine was authentic on the conkers game, looked a bit synthetic to me (tongue in cheek)

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: GUEST, Jim Hancock
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 07:01 AM

The authenticity of the baler twine was something which concerned me greatly. Baler twine was of course in common usage in the 1890s, however I was concerned that the apparant "fluffines" of the twine implied Edwardian sisal rather than Victorian jute however I have checked my copy of "Discovering String" - P. F. Harrington, (Pub. Wilson & Wilson, London 1957) and it confirms that jute which has been used for previous applications will indeed give the impression of sisal string at first glance but is readily identifiable by its golden colour. (Not to be confused with the pale brown of manilla.
I hope this clears the uncerainty
All the best
Jim Hancock

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:32 AM

Perhaps Flora Thompson gives some guidance on which kind of sisal the postman used in his conker games? Or whhat the sex of the actors was in the mummers play? Or how a conker sabotaged the cooker? Or what kind of clothes the visiting Rational Dress woman wore? Or the precise nature of the friendship bracelets? Or the instrumentation of the folk group that practises in Larkrise? Or how Laura got over to Larkrise for the mummers practise? Or the still that Twister uses? Or did the author unaccountably fail to cover these incidents?

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:37 AM

I think we should be told! (Eye passim)

L in C

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:41 AM

Greg, now we really have food for thought, thanks Jim for the research

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:44 AM

The point that really intrigues me is this. Is there any evidence that the adapter has ever seen a copy of Larkrise to Candleford?

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:47 AM

I never have and I am enjoying a TV show of the same name!

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:50 AM

Much fun was had here:

"According to Victoria: "Christmas can be a difficult time for those struggling with that bonnet-free wasteland between the last Lark Rise and the next Cranford." So, Victoria fills the gap with Lark Pies To Cranchesterford, which tells the story of young Araminty as she leaves her rural hamlet for a job in the Post and Potato Office."

And here


L in C

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Smokey.
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 04:37 PM

"The authenticity of the baler twine was something which concerned me greatly." (GUEST, Jim Hancock)

Whilst I have great respect for the legendary P. F. Harrington, (esteemed author of "Discovering String") my gut feeling was that it was not baler twine at all, but hemp parcel string, probably lifted from the Post Office. One glance at "The Observers' Book of String" seemed to confirm that theory. Naturally, I was horrified, but then that's why I watch it. I did, however, fingd the woolen underwear most erotic, whether authentic or not. Excuse me, I have to go.

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:55 PM

I doubt that woollen underwear is erotic if you're wearing it - except from the point of view that Margaret was obviously dying to remove it....

Any authenticity in the programme is entirely spurious, as anyone who's seen Alf's melodeon playing will know!

Kitty

Subject: RE: mummers in larkrise
From: EnglishFolkfan
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 07:16 PM

It would seem the Researchers have done their work well for this episode, not only on the Rational Dress Society but Dr Gustave Jaeger's Sanitary Woollen Underwear. They have added a comic twist in that the designs for ladies were actually petticoats and corsets, the 'combinations' were only for men!

Dr Jaegers theory & petticoat

An American perspective on Dr Jaeger