And on to the highlight of the season, another appearance as an Arena team at Sidmouth. The invitation had come about after originally just being asked to take part in a special Arena show on the Monday evening showcasing Morris through the ages, where we would do a sword dance, but on top of this we then agreed to take part in the Festival as a full Arena team from Saturday to Tuesday. Just as when we did this in 2000, it turned out to be challenging, stimulating, and a great experience for all of us to take part in, made even better by the fantastic weather enjoyed throughout the whole festival.
So once again we found ourselves as the first act in the first full event of Sidmouth 2003, the formal ‘Sidmouth welcome’ showcase on Saturday morning featuring brief performances from some of the guest teams. We were the only English team in this, and got a very good reception for 2 minutes worth of Highland Mary for all nine of our dancers and two musicians there (our full side except for Paul and Jane). At the end of the half hour showcase we were asked to take part in the circular dance featuring all the guest teams, taking a partner from one of the other teams e.g. the attractive Russian ladies just behind us. Ah well, needs must. We then moved swiftly on to do a set outside the Anchor before going up to the Arena ready for our first Arena show on the Saturday afternoon, which went very well in front of a decent sized crowd. After it had finished we had a shared set with 2 border teams and a molly side on the Arena Showground South Stage, a slightly odd venue for morris but with a reasonable sized audience.
Sunday morning was the Morris procession from the Arena down to Port Royal, which this year only featured 6 teams, with us at the front. This was followed by dancing on the prom, and in the afternoon Simon and Jameson, with Sue as musician, took part in the jig competition again. The standard throughout was extremely high in both the single and double jigs, but the 3 of them triumphed once again in the double jig, thanks to an excellent overall performance and great playing from Sue, and despite a somewhat ungainly finish when Simon tripped on the final galley and the 2 of them finished in an untidy heap (all part of the show? – we think not). In addition Jameson, again with Sue as musician, also entered the single jig competition with Princess Royal, and hammed it up appropriately, playing to the (JKL) camera throughout. It was another fine performance from the 2 of them and they deservedly finished in the top two, though unfortunately one place behind a certain Mr. S. Pipe of Adderbury.
On Sunday evening we performed a brief set at the Anchor Gardens as part of the somewhat low key Morris evening, and then moved to the Church House Lawn Marquee for a set during the ceilidh with Grand Union in front of a smallish but enthusiastic ceilidh audience.
Monday morning was taken up with rehearsals for the evening ‘Flame’ show, and gave us the first very brief opportunity to practice with the Mellstock Band who were to be musicians for most of the show. After the rehearsal finished, we had a short period on high alert as the Arena director, Mike Bettison, asked us if we could be on standby to perform in the afternoon show as cover for the Ghanaians who had an illness scare, but after some of us had grovelled round to get kit and put a set together it turned out all was well with the Ghanaians and we weren’t needed after all. Still, it all added to the drama of the day. Before the evening show we met for a final rehearsal outside Roselands, (with Sue very nobly playing for us although she would not be for the evening) and then up to the Arena for the show. Once changed, we had some JKL photos taken, and then the show started. It was essentially a staged look back at Morris through the ages, put together by Sue Swift, and with 2 costumed presenters narrating. Our contribution was to recreate the Buffens or Matachin dance from the 16th century, using some brief notation. This task had been made easier for us because parts of the dance had been taught to some of the team at a Dommett weekend, and we had adapted one key stick clashing figure as the chorus for our Laughing Cavalier dance. However over the preceding weeks we had developed a full dance (ably led in this by Jerry who worked really hard to put the dance together), Lyn had made some excellent outfits especially for it, and Jerry had arranged the hire of theatrical swords to complete the effect. When we went on to do our 5 minute turn during the show, it all came together in great style and from the audience reaction at the time plus what everyone said to us afterwards, we think it turned out really well.
Once our spot had finished we went out into the audience to watch the rest of the show, and enjoyed ourselves considerably by posing in our white kit at the top of the embankment for some time. The show on the whole was excellent, despite one or two patchy moments, with a particular highlight being Black Swans second half rapper dance with flaming rapper swords – difficult to beat that. At the very end, we went back on stage with everyone else to take bows, and were able to perform our party trick where as we came forward in line and bowed, we brought our sword arm down over our bodies and pretended to cut off the next persons leg, going ‘Oops’ as we did so, and then hopping to the back of the stage. This worked much better in our minds than it did on stage, but gave us a laugh anyway.
Tuesday was our final day of performance, with an appearance on the South Stage at lunchtime, and an Arena show in the evening. We had also decided that before the evening show we would do a set on the seafront and this probably turned out to be one of our Festival highlights as we were able to do some good but relaxed dances for a small but appreciative audience who were quite happy to stand / sit and watch us for a bit while we got warmed up for the evening Arena performance. This helped us for our spot in the Arena show, which was extended on the day to 15 minutes from the 10 we had been expecting, and once again it all went extremely well with no mistakes, immaculate dancing from all the boys, and immaculate music from Sue and Bob, as it had been throughout the hectic 4 days of performances.
And before we knew where we were, that was the end of Sidmouth for BB! For some of the team it was time to get back to reality straight away, while others stayed on and enjoyed the rest of the festival as punters on holiday rather than performers on adrenalin. But for all of us it had been great fun……….
(and see 2003 Sidmouth gallery for pictures)