At Sidmouth C of E Primary School on Saturday, August 3, Stephen Rowley led a Mummers’ Play Skills workshop covering the history and theatrical practice of Mummers' Plays.

Stephen, who is founder of the International Mummers Festival, started the session playing his squeezebox and singing a traditional song, explaining that he would be drawing on the work of Professor Peter Harrap’s book 'Mummers’ Plays Revisited' and focusing on the craft involved in these plays rather than on the script.

The Mummers’ plays can be dated back to 1750 and the word 'mumming' derives from the tradition of disguising one’s voice or utilising comic accents. The plays were subversive and often fell foul of the local authorities and were banned. In spite of this they are still lovingly revived by folklorist groups across the UK. Ironically, it was the Puritans whose promotion of printing and reading meant that these plays started to appear in chap book form and so have been preserved.

The 20 or so attendees of the workshop eagerly threw themselves into the practical side of proceedings and there was some impressive acting and comedy on show as they improvised around the script. The joy of the Mummers’ tradition is that it welcomes anyone who wants to become involved, truly a theatre for and of the people.

Two of the participants in the workshop, Leo and Jess, visiting the Folk Festival from Croydon, have been writing their own Mummers-style plays and both are members of Morris sides. Jess said about the Folk Festival, which she was attending for the first time: “It is a lot bigger than I was expecting. It would take about five years to cover all the things on offer.”

The Sidmouth Mummers are part of this long tradition and usually perform their play in the town at Christmas time. They do however make an exception for the Folk Festival and were mingling with audience outside The Anchor pub on Sunday, August 4, ready to start their tour of the town.

The character Father Christmas is the narrator and was played in the blazing heat of an August lunchtime by Henry Piper, who has a fund of fascinating history to share about the Mummers’ play that is specific to Sidmouth. It was performed in 1905 as a celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and was then later revived in the 1950s and in its present form in 1978, with the help of Exeter Library archives.

Anyone who had attended the workshop on Saturday would have found their appreciation and enjoyment of the performance of the Sidmouth Mummers’ play greatly enhanced. One of the stock characters in many of the mock-heroic Mummers’ plays is Prince George. As the Georgian period came to an end, this character morphed into St George, dressed traditionally in a Knights Templar style costume with chain mail and cross of St George. This character was exuberantly played by Marc Coulson, who skilfully kept the crowd cheering for England, as he fought the foreign “baddies” one by one.

One of the great pleasures of the annual Folk Festival is the range of workshops on offer. It was a treat to be able to learn about the craft of Mumming and then be able to watch how the tradition was being kept vibrantly alive in the streets of Sidmouth. More on the History of the Sidmouth Mummers’ Play can be found at https://sidvalecommunityproductions.jimdofree.com/mummers/