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Here's some more on Morris On The Somme
Morris Matters
Volume 32 Number 1 January 2013
“Morris on the Somme” was originally conceived by Mick Jones, erstwhile squire of Wheatley Morris Men, for drama workshops at the Sidmouth Festival in 1987. He developed it into a play for the stage and tried to get professional companies to take it on. Many came back with praise for the work but none saw it as a viable stage play. Mick entered it in a ‘New Writers’ competition sponsored by the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield and it was given a rehearsed reading in front of an audience at the Crucible’s Studio and was directed by Stephen Daldry, later to gain fame as the director of the film “Billy Elliot”. It was also given a similar rehearsed reading at the Gate Theatre, in Notting Hill, by the Paines Plough Company and was directed by Jo Carter.
Eventually, Nigel Bryant said he would like to put it on as a radio play and after cutting all but one of the female parts and taking out all of Mick’s music it went out on Radio 4 as the afternoon play on 17 October 1991, broadcast from Pebble Mill.
The Wheatley Morris side had spent a pleasant Sunday dancing in the car park to the expert concertina playing of John Kirkpatrick. The play starred Ian Targett as Harry, the main character and a grandson of a morris dancer. Ian was from Wheatley and was able to give the other actors coaching in genuine Oxfordshire accents.
The play tells the tale of the Rowscott Morris Men who all joined up in 1914. It starts in the pub, featuring a row over which Morris side ”owned“ the pub. There are some good quotes about how it will break the spell if the dancers don’t focus on the performance of the dance; that going through the motions of the dance sequence is not enough. Also with the imminent departure to war, how on the whole the same rules apply to morris teams and to soldiers – respect, straight lines, nothing sloppy or rushed. A chunk of the dialogue is based on a mummers’ play, with some of Beelzebub’s lines being particularly relevant to the horror of the wartime setting.
After joining up (Harry does so in his grandfather’s memory, after much reluctance and mainly to accompany his young brother, Jacky), all the team were slaughtered on the first day of the Battle of the Somme apart from one survivor, the youngest, Jacky.
The deaths poignantly echo their last Shepherds Hey performed at the White Hart, whereby they each are wounded in a body part: foot, knee, thigh, chest, neck…..
Beth Neill
November 2012
https://www.morrisfed.org.uk/magazines/morris-matters/vol-32-issue-01/
>page 25 (26of33)
Morris on the Somme
BBC Radio 4
First broadcast: Thu 17th Oct 1991, 14:00
Mick Jones 's unusual play blends music, fact and dream to tell the story of the Rowscott Morris , an Oxfordshire Morris side who dance together, enlist together - and find themselves attacking together in the opening days of the Battle of the Somme.
Dances performed by the Wheatley Morris Men
Music: John Kirkpatrick
Director Nigel Bryant. Stereo
Harry: Ian Targett
Bumper: Richard Avery
Ginger: Martin Weedon
Jackie: Philip Weaver
Tom: Andrew Callaway
Wilfrid: Martin Hyder
Ma: Charlotte West Oram
Granfer: Gerry Hinks
Stretcher Bearers: David Holt
Stretcher Bearers: Jonathan Wyatt
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/c75669d5dfe3c0a0b9c3f2005147a835
The radio play is also on the Wheatley Village YouTube page with some photos of Wheatley soldiers.
https://youtu.be/hSVHpgk4RtE
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