RED STAGS MUMMERS

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"Only their dress did not manipulate language"

The line was a piece of "magnetic poetry" that appeared on our freezer door after the first practice. Sadly, it proved to be non-millennium-compliant, disappearing in a clean-up before the new-year. Practice went well; rather better than the booking of the various pubs, which was a chapter of accidents. For the record, however, Red Stags received a warm welcome at each of the six performances that finally took place.

With the advent locally of huge food-pubs owned by various holding companies including Nomura, there are fewer suitable venues that there used to be. We also attempt (this year unsuccessfully) to avoid pubs which are being used by the other groups in the area. We still, however, had more this year we had many more potential invitations and favourite pubs on our list than there were available evenings. Given the conservatism of the area, the liking which proprietors or staff have for something few people actually understand is surprising, but then again, many of them are also cricket fans, which may explain it. I have a tentative plan to take another play, which doesn't feature sword fighting, round other venues in spring 2000, but we shall see.

Until a couple of years ago, we performed some variant of the script posted elsewhere on this site. Lately, however, we have adopted a butchered version of the play performed by the Datchet men, which has the dual virtues of brevity and the fact that most of the parts are about the same length. The "giant" Helzebub features strongly: Southampton has its own giant legend and I keep meaning to rewrite those speeches, but somehow I never seem to get round to it.

The "Darkish Knight" was this year played by Darth Vader, whilst the Doctor sported a long scarf and floppy hat, offering jelly babies to the audience. It would be unfair to remind the gentle reader that rather more of the cast than the audience could remember these from first time round, so in the spirit of the mummers, I will.

The first evening was made memorable by one of the booked venues being closed due to illness. This left a gaggle of cast, hangers on and enthusiastic audience who had followed us from the first spot, standing in the street whilst your hapless narrator, clad only in a sackcloth robe, negotiated an alternative. Whilst all the pubs were very good to us, my special thanks go to the new landlord of the "Endeavour" in Bugle Street for services above and beyond the call of duty. Later we returned to the first spot to perform the play again for a group who had assumed that we would start late and consequently missed us.

Equally memorable was the last night, when the pub we normally use for the shakedown, was treated to a performance where everyone knew their lines and cues and almost all of the props worked. That play was watched by a large office party was watching and several of them were actually listening and attempting to make sense of the script. At one point this resulted in a character having to answer questions about continuity whilst the other protagonist waited patiently to be killed. To prevent the thing lasting until after closing time, further questions were fielded by a couple of the locals, who know the script almost as well as we do. I have noted down some of their more inventive replies for future use.