Mummers Play

Mummers Play

Mummers' Plays (also known as mumming) are seasonal folk plays performed by troupes of actors known as mummers or guisers originally from England and Northern Ireland but later in other parts of the world. The groups performing the play were normally from a village and each village had a slightly different version of the play. To most groups. mumming was a way of raising extra money for Christmas and the play was taken round the big houses, and sometimes performed in the street and in public houses.
Although the term "mummers" has been used since medieval times, no play scripts or performance details survive from that era, and the term may have been used loosely to describe performers of several different kinds. Mumming may have precedents in German and French carnival customs, with rare but close parallels also in late medieval England.
Although usually broadly comic performances, the plays seem to be based on underlying themes of duality and resurrection and generally involve a battle between two or more characters, perhaps representing good against evil, or the death of the old year and the birth of the new.
The central incident is the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters; the hero sometimes kills and sometimes is killed by his opponent. The defining feature of mumming plays is the Doctor, who has a magic potion which is able to resuscitate a slain character.
It is not known how old the mumming play is, although contemporary references to it begin to appear in the mid-18th century. Mumming, at any rate in the South of England, had its heyday at the end of the nineteenth century and the earliest years of the 20th century. but it largely died out with the onset of the first world war. In the second half of the twentieth century many groups were revived, mostly by folk music and dance enthusiasts.
Based on a text by Ellington Morris, Maidenhead, Berkshire, and on Wikipedia - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummers_Play
*****************************************************************************************
Our Mummers Play
The Quicksbottom play has been cobbled together from a variety of sources, including the Plough plays of the East Midlands of England, whence come such characters as the Recruiting Sergeant, Tom Fool, Dame Jane and the "Lady bright and gay".

See us on video
You will find our play has changed a bit over time - that is
what a living tradition- and confusion - is all about!

Mummers Play, New Year’s Day 2010 – Maritime Museum
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRCRhHrluBU
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMsf1cUavxk

Mummers Play, New Year’s Eve 2008
Part 1
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=wuL7hhUE0KU
Part 2
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y7lr4It52U

Mummers Play, New Year’s Day 2007 – Bastion Square
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8R09eN6EjU

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz290KOrfJE

Mummers Play, New Year’s Day 2007 – Maritime Museum
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w0LgJ7DC-Y
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rZ7KUOO71g