THE annual Keynsham Mummers Play brought some traditional warmth to a grey and very chilly Boxing Day.
Crowds braved the winter temperatures to watch the Bristol Morris Men perform the outdoor show in three locations – St John’s Church, the library and the New Inn.
They were entertained by a cast of seven – Father Christmas (Clive Du’Mont), Little John/Prince (Grant Glanville), King George (Andy Brewer), the Turkish Knight (Nigel Cooke), the Doctor (Dave Leverton), Thomas (Jack Neal) and the Shepherdess (Peter Lord) – who entertained the audience with verse, comedy, singing, dancing and combat.
The Bristol Morris Men first performed the play in 1976 at a Bristol University folk dance and began performing it in Keynsham the following year. This Boxing Day marked their 49th performance of it – 48 live and one online during the Covid lockdown.
The play is based on a version that was performed on December 27, 1822, by the Christmas Boys, as they were then known, and watched by a vicar, Joseph Hunter, who got a copy of the script from one of the actors.
The play, as collected, has no proper ending, but the current performers have rearranged various lines to bring the play to a neater conclusion.
Andy Brewer, who plays King George in the show, said: “The play was never recorded before 1822, as far as we are aware, so no one knows how long the play had been performed before then, or indeed, its origins.”
He added: “I think that the appeal to the performers is the fact that we are keeping alive a tradition which is hundreds of years old.
“Also, as morris dancers, it appeals to our love of performing – a morris dance was inserted into the middle of the play when it was revived in 1977.
“The audience keep coming back each year because, as well as being entertaining, I hope, the majority have a connection to Keynsham and are interested and proud of its traditions. A lot of the audience have been coming regularly for many years.”
