The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78748   Message #1424866
Posted By: Snuffy
02-Mar-05 - 08:38 AM
Thread Name: Padstow Darkie Days
Subject: RE: Padstow Darkie Days
Spot,

We're looking for songs at the end of the play, not the start. Most of ours start with Father Christmas bursting in "A room, a room, a roust, a doust" or similar. We do occasionally start using a version of the pace-egging song "We're 1-2-3 jolly lads, all in one mind..." using either the tradtional tune or Villikins.

Most Warwickshire plays seem to have ended with a song, but which song? It is either unspecified or a minstrel song. We want to find what they sang before the minstrel craze.

The Cotswold Shepherd's Song is well known round here, and indeed Blockley is one of our regular performance spots, but I've never previously heard of it being adapted to Mummers' use. Which play is that? Perhaps we could do something along those lines.