Come to drink a pot of your Christmas beer: Time to look out for Symondsbury Mummers!

PEOPLE who have never seen the Symondsbury Mummers are nearly always (in my experience) a bit wary about going along.

They fear it’s going to be precious or twee or horribly amateur – in short, embarrassing in some way – but afterwards people always say: “Actually, it was really good”. Because it is. It is a proper theatrical experience and very entertaining.

Mummers used to consist – according to the Dorset poet William Barnes, writing in 1863 – of “a set of youths who go about at Christmas, decked with painted paper and tinsel, and act in the houses of those who like to receive them a little drama, mostly, though not always, representing a fight between St George and a Mohammedan leader, and commemorative, therefore, of the Holy Wars. One of the characters, with a hump-back and bawble, represents ‘Old Father Christmas’”. As in, [stage direction] Enter Old Father Christmas:

Here comes I, Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not.

I hope Old Father Christmas will never be forgot…

I have been far, I have been near,

And now I am come to drink a pot of your Christmas beer;

And if it’s a pot of your best,

I hope in heaven your soul will rest…  

No one knows for sure how old Mummers’ plays are, but both Barnes and Thomas Hardy thought them medieval, because of the element redolent of the Crusades.

Symondsbury’s play is the fullest surviving version in the country. It was regularly performed up until World War One, then eventually revived after World War Two. It has 11 characters – Father Christmas, Room, Anthony King of Egypt, St. George, St. Patrick, a Doctor, four warriors and Dame Dorothy. One of the strongest mummers takes the part of Tommy the Pony. 

These days Symondsbury Mummers can perhaps no longer be described as “a set of youths” but that just means their performances are more characterful. And they do work really well as an ensemble.

They normally do several performances around this time of year but the only one I know of at the moment is at the Comrades Hall in Broadwindsor at 7.30pm on Saturday, 19 December. The evening will also feature traditional music and carols from Tinker’s Cuss.

The Merrie Olde Christmas event has been organised by Broadwindsor Jubilee Group to raise money for the annual village fun day, which next year takes place on June 12 and has Merrie Olde England as its theme. Proceeds from that event will be split between village causes.

Tickets for the evening cost £3, which includes a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie. To book, call 01308 868532 or 867939.

 

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