Reports from the
year 2009
FIRST
HALF 2009 - the new boys settle in, and a wide variety of events
Another
great series of events for BB in the first half of 2009, with plenty of
opportunities for our promising new youthful members to show what they are
capable of, and to stir some of the older ones to jump as high as the new
boys - with mixed success.
The season started early with an evening at the Armaleggan Ale on Saturday 14th
March, a fine evening hosted by Armaleggan and featuring good dancing from a
number of good guest teams. After an excellent buffet it was time for some party
pieces, and Jameson once again ably represented us with his song of the Dunns,
an innocent sounding song, but secretly revealing much intrigue and conspiracy amongst
the Dunn family, who seem to spend much of the day running, possibly because of
the rhyming potential. Then a week later on 21st March we were at the Oxford Folk
Festival for a day, which was blessed with unseasonably fine weather. A
procession round town was followed by dancing outside some of the magnificent architectural masterpieces of Oxford, though it must be said the gargoyles
outside the Bodleian Library were giving us some particularly twisted looks. And
on a couple of occasions we had two sets of 6 dancers up, the first time BB have
been able to field this many dancers publicly this century.
The
next event was a St. George's Day dance out on Thursday 24th April, again this
year visiting the Suffolk Lodge Residential Home in Wokingham before heading on
to The Olde Leathern Bottle where we were made to feel very welcome.
Sunday May 17th saw us in Brighton for the Brighton Morris Day of
Dance. Some torrential rain at the beginning of the day (but not of course
on us), forced an unscheduled start in the King & Queen pub near the Royal
Pavilion, where all the sides did 1 or 2 very cramped dances before the sun came
out and the day's planned schedule resumed. Our tour took us to the Basket
Makers and Pump House pubs before dancing in front of the entrance to the pier,
and then finally back at Pavilion Gardens for a massed stand of all the day's
fine teams. Our Dance of The Little Fairies included one of our invitations to
the audience at the end to 'join us through the magic arch' which they duly did,
causing no little chaos while doing so plus arm-ache for the BBs holding their
sticks aloft - especially for those more junior members present unused to such
nonsense.
The following weekend was the Spring Bank Holiday, when we once again attended
the Chippenham Folk Festival for the first time since 2004. This turned out to
be very rewarding for all the BBs who took part, though it was a pretty
intensive schedule by morris standards. Over the 3 days we had 2 workshops, 2
processions, an evening dance spot, a 15 minute Arena stage spot on our own,
much street dancing, and in particular 2 Big Caper shows with The Outside
Capering Crew. The number of available BB performers varied a bit by day, but
for much of the time we had our 3 younger lads with us though they were also
practising and performing with NYFTE for much of the weekend. Overall though the
side acquitted itself extremely well, with particular highlights being the 1
hour Big Caper show at the Constitutional Hall on the Saturday evening (for
which we had spent much of the afternoon rehearsing), and also a surprisingly
good set during a Playford dance on the Sunday evenning, where everything just
clicked with the 4 dances we did. The 1 hour Big Caper show was based mainly on
a programme developed for previous festivals, but with some new material
including the Pirates Jig from the crew followed by our sword dance where we
were dressed as pirates (aaarrrhhh....). Our new boys slotted in remarkably
well, including in the Finale where Alun, Mark and Will all performed some
bacapipes before, in the final sequence, Alun soared over the Crew in a final
leapfrog while Rob and Jerry did the same over 3 BBs each. "As good as a
West End show" said one member of the audience afterwards (allegedly while
fumbling for his white stick), and from other later comments it seemed like all
the audience enjoyed it. Not sure about the 'green room' provided for us though
- accessed by a door at the back of the hall, it could best be described as a
heavily overgrown small back garden and dumping ground. Still, we didn't want to
seem too precious ..... The Sunday also saw us do a shortened (40 minute)
version of the show on the main Arena stage, featuring some different material
which also went very well though for a variety of reasons not quite as fluent as
the earlier show. All in all though a great weekend for us.
Sunday 7 June saw us again at the Kirtlington Lamb Ale, another regular event
for us in recent years. A slightly depleted team got itself even more depleted
when Jerry's calf muscle went during the second part of the procession around
the village, though he then became a handy drum banger, Bob being off for the
day being a Mabel Gubbins. Despite this the side, abetted by young Will and
Mark, acquitted itself very well throughout a range of dances, except perhaps
during a slightly disastrous version of Jolly Jockey sticks at the Dashwood,
where there was a lot less catching than throwing. However we were able to
bounce back next dance with a high spirited Knees Up. For the afternoon show
spot in the playground, we were a bit worried beforehand being rather late in
the schedule and with storm clouds gathering, but the threatened rain held off
nad we were able to do a creditable Boggle with Swords.
On the following Saturday, 13th June, we were invited for the first time to
Abingdon Traditional Morris's 'Mayor's Day' traditional event - one of the first
Morris Fed sides to be invited to this prestigious event, and certainly the
first featuring female musicians, though Simon and Jameson have both been regular
attendees (as spectators) over the years. The day, blessed by particularly sunny
weather, turned out to be great fun - featuring amongst other things a 'mock
mayor' election - an election taking place every year for one of Abingdon to be
elected as the new 'Mayor of Ock Street', voted for by members of Abingdon
Morris and the residents of Ock Street. Although the post these days is
symbolic, over 200 people vote, and the new mayor traditionally is charged with
keeping the current civic mayor up to scratch. After the election takes place,
visiting morris sides (this year Saddleworth Morris, Chipping Camden and
ourselves) take turns to carry the new mayor from pub to pub on a type of sedan
chair. And it's pretty heavy too. Other features of the day were dancing in a
variety of places around Abingdon, including the magnificent open vaulted County
Hall, where we put on a pretty good set in front of a good audience of the other
morris sides and locals. Throughout the day, we moved from one place to another
by a walking procession led by the 'Ock Street Horns' - a huge pair of ox's
horns which we can testify easily stops traffic when their carrier steps out
into the road to lead the procession to the next spot, which happened frequently
throughout the day. Overall we very much enjoyed the dancing, of which there
turned out to be quite a lot (we managed 30 dances during the day, 21 different
ones, which we think is a record for us for one day). We also thoroughly enjoyed
Abingdon's fine hospitality during the day, including a tea which was a proper
tea (sandwiches, pork pie, loads of cake etc), and an excellent supper in the
imposing Checker Hall, one of the remaining parts of Abingdon Abbey. During the
supper there were various musical entertainments, and Jameson once again sang of
his friends the Dunns before the whole day was dunn and everyone dunn and gone
home.
SECOND HALF 2009 -
another packed programme and a bit more telly ....
Following
the events in the first half of the year (see 2009
diary for more details), and our traditional summer solstice evening out at
Avebury with Holt Morris on 18th June, July saw us continue on our travels.
First up was the Icknield Way Day of Dance in Wantage on 4th Jul, which included
some good dancing around the town, and a show spot in the inspiring surroundings
of the walkway next to Tesco. Then a sunny evening out with Jackstraws at the
Cricketers, Hartley Wintney, on 9th July was followed by a damper evening on the
16th July with Mayflower at the Old Wheatsheaf, Frimley Green. On Saturday 18
Jul we were in Windsor for one of Windsor Morris's well organised Days of Dance,
followed in the evening by a guest appearance at Cecil Sharp House for a spot
during the Paula Woods birthday ceilidh. The spot went very well, only slightly
inhibited by the rather large pizzas we had unwisely scoffed beforehand as we
tend to do on such occasions.
The weekend of 25th/26th July saw us again at the Warwick Festival, where on the
Saturday we enjoyed the sunshine, the dancing, the
procession-that-never-seems-to-end, and the almost inevitable dance in the
children's paddling pool at the end of the procession. With no evening spot to
do, we were able to indulge ourselves on the campsite with yet more Dominos
pizza, and as usual we severely overestimated the amount we actually needed,
suggesting the new BB slogan - "Berkshire Bedlam - never knowingly
underpizza'd". Sunday started for us with an outdoor workshop in the Market
Place, where we taught Sucking the Monkey to unsuspecting members of the public
(or was it the other way round in some cases?) followed by an excellent
lunchtime session outside the Zetland, and a final set back at the school /
campsite.
On Sunday 2nd August we found ourselves with enough BBs at the Sidmouth Festival
to be able to do a lunchtime spot on the prom along with all the other usual
sides there, and another later spot also on the seafront on our own. And a
special mention to Alun, Mark and Will M who acquitted themselves extremely well
again in the afternoon's jig competition. And then on Sunday 23rd August it was
yet another bizarre event to add to the rich vein of bizarre events of recent
years. In 2005 we took part in an episode of 'Chucklevision' for CBBC, dressed
as Bavarian dancers, and had a great deal of fun doing it. The producer of that
episode, Jack Jameson, liked us and invited us to take part in an episode of
another CBBC programme he was producing called Spacehoppers. This is a
children's science programme, presented by Big Cook Little Cook presenters Dan
and Steve, and in this episode we were asked to be dressed in our regular morris
kit and take part in a number of sequences which attempted to explain something
about planets and their smells in an amusing and educational way. Filming took
place at Littlewick Green on a very hot August afternoon, and with Sue and Bob
providing some of our regular (but non copyright) music we did a number of dance
and other sequences, interacting with the presenters, and including one sequence
in which one of them moved amongst us blindfolded, detecting smells of things we
were carrying, while we orbited round doing parts of our
Schrödingers Hat dance.
Jameson got a whole line of script at one point (fortunately without too many 'r's
in it) during a sequence where everyone got to sit crammed on a bench having tea
together (if this all sounds a bit bizarre, it's basically because it was). The
filming took all of the afternoon, with many sequences being filmed several
times, and some reshot because local people in the houses around the green had
been inconsiderate enough to appear in the distance, or get in their cars and
drive off. Some people, eh? We think the filming went well, but are all curious
to see what the final programme looks like in early 2010!
Wallingford Bunkfest was next, on 5th September - another good day, with spots
around town and on the Kinecroft Main stage, and topped as usual by the main
event of the day, a well attended Chunkfest at Sue's. Local supermarkets have
apparently got to hear about this now, and stock up for some weeks beforehand
with the copious amounts of tinned pineapple and evap which we get through these
days. Nice to see these traditions carrying on over the years .....
And then the last event of the main season, the Tenterden Folk Festival, which
we went to on Sat 3rd October. Based in the Kent town of Tenterden, the festival
features many morris teams from Kent, the South East, and further afield, and we
enjoyed a good days dancing followed by a procession (not sure about processing
in and out of the lingerie shop but it passed a few moments) and fine
performance of Fairies in the show spot at the end of the day.
The
end of the main dance season is never the end of BB's activities for the year
though and next up on Sat 28 Nov was the annual Bunfight ceilidh, featuring this
year the fabulous Committee Band with caller Nick Walden - their popularity
evidenced by the first ever Bunfight sell out. This year's theme was 'Circus',
and once again some great outfits were on show from some of our guests. The band
played some great dance music throughout the evening, interspersed with a couple
of breaks - the first one featuring (as well as the inevitable Irish Bingo)
young Will, Mark and Alun performing a fine version of their 3 person jig based
on the BB Boggle dance and named for the night 'Jiggle'. This also featured a
unique BB musicians line up, with Jane and Bob being helped out by Emma on
accordeon, covering for Sue who was off climbing mountains in Egypt. The second
spot showcased the unique talents of 16 of the BB All Stars Cheerleaders,
specially trained for the evening by Steph, who performed a routine based on The
Cartoons version of Witch Doctor, ending up with hoisting our 3 younger lads
skywards. Amazingly
the audience insisted on seeing this again (possibly helped by Nick telling them
to), and in order to inject a bit of variety, the second time through the
routine went slightly wrong in different places from where it had gone slightly
wrong the first time. But overall another excellent night, and once again a fine
team effort to make it all happen and ensure everyone had a great time - aided
considerably by having such a fine band and caller.
The next day saw those of us still standing after the night before out in
Wokingham for the Wokingham Winter Carnival. For reasons too tricky to go into,
ourselves and Borderline were the only Morris sides there, but BB performed
creditably in between the showers, and had a good joint spot with Borderline in
the early afternoon before heavier rains wiped out the rest of the day.
The Xmas dinner on Thurs 17 Dec saw Santa dish out the usual amazing array of
Secret Santa presents, just after Paul had gone out of the room, missing Santa
again for the third year in a row. A light covering of snow settled during the
evening, which unknown to all present was to be the precursor to several weeks
of snow and biting cold weather. Some snow was still around on Saturday 19th
when we made our traditional last Saturday before Xmas lunchtime appearance in
Wokingham Market Place - and at one point Jameson managed to secrete some snow
in his Coconut shell, ready to splat Lee highly effectively during the first
chorus of the coconut dance. The day concluded with an afternoon at Jameson and
Emma's new library-masquerading-as-a-house, where everyone had a good time
providing they didn't actually touch any of the books.
And so, on to 2010!
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