The Autumn brought our usual beginners & improvers course, and we were pleased to welcome some new and old faces for the 4 sessions. Ably led by Jerry, the course covered several dances in the repertoire and finished up teaching the Sword Dance although on Health and Safety grounds this was done with sticks, which did somewhat belie the dance’s name come to think about it. But when the course had finished, the usual annual question was on everyone’s mind – what (spot) shall we do at the Bunfight?
After a false start down a gymnastic track, inspiration was duly provided when Jameson discovered a video clip of a short routine stuffed away behind the pantomime camel he keeps in his bedroom (don’t ask) which we proceeded to use as the basis for the dance we eventually did at the Bunfight.
Ah!…the Bunfight. For many years this has been a highlight of the Berkshire Bedlam calendar, although a drop in numbers attending in 2003 had made us question its future – however the 2004 event on Sat 27 November was very well attended and was one of the best ever. The overall theme was ‘Schooldays’, a simple and relatively unambiguous theme this year, though we liked lots of the various interpretations which turned up on the night. ‘Phungus’ as usual were the band for the evening, and played exceptionally well all night; our normal caller Hugh Crabtree couldn’t make it but his replacement for the evening Nikki Hampson also did a great job, and between them the band and caller (also suitably schoolishly attired) had the dance floor filled throughout. It was great to see so many people up and dancing, including this year a good contingent of younger people who we hope will want to go to other ceilidhs having seen how much fun they can be with a good band and caller. But the spots are also an important part of the Bunfight and this year we had 3. First up was BB pretending they were schoolboys who had forgotten their P.E. kit and so had to do their dance (the Mazurka) in ‘vest and pants’ – basically an excuse for the boys to get their kit off as usual, though the vest and pants attire was actually relatively tasteful. The second spot had Windsor Morris’s ‘Sisters of Murphy’ Irish Dance, introduced by Cherry in full nun’s attire, and with musical accompaniment from Andy Richards (‘Sister Andrea’) on pipe and tabor. The ‘girls’ doing it (including our own Bob, confusingly cross dressing again) certainly looked the part with green attire, black tights, and long wigs (they were wigs, weren’t they girls?) and the dance was going very well, arms clenched tightly at their sides, until the ‘Michael Flatley’ type character, which turned out to be a rather hermaphrodite Jerry in fetching skirt and ginger wig, came on towards the end and attempted, not terribly successfully, to do the same stepping. But anyway, great fun, and the spot went down very well. This was immediately followed by the Irish bingo raffle, splendidly MC’d by Paul with no apparent traces of self-consciousness in his Britney schoolgirl outfit – reasonably convincing except for the hairy bare midriff Paul. The third spot of the evening was BB again, with a carefully choreographed ‘Men in Black’ routine to a fast moving backing track. Despite the odd slip (it had definitely gone better in final practice!) this also went down very well with the enthusiastic audience, who had been helped no doubt at this stage of the evening by some visits to the free bar. And surprise, surprise, we were asked to do it again – which we reluctantly (not) did. After this it was Phungus getting everyone on to the dance floor until the end of another very successful and memorable Bunfight. Now, what shall we do next year…..?
As has become customary, the Bunfight was followed the next day (Sun 28th) by the Wokingham Winter Carnival, where the centre of Wokingham is closed off to traffic, there is a Victorian style street market, various other stalls, fairground attractions – and a number of local Morris teams. Although it is always hard to get going the morning after the night before, BB managed to acquit themselves reasonably well, and even managed to get 6 dancers into the late afternoon procession despite the damp and chill in the air. This year the Morris teams joined the procession halfway round, which was a much better idea, although the marshal assigned to us thought we were called ‘Berkshire Bedroom’, which sounds more like a second rate furniture store than a team of top-notch Morris entertainers (that’s what it says on our CV anyway). The day finished with a music session in the Broad Street Tavern, followed by going home to collapse in a big heap of assorted kit, costumes and other clothes from the previous 2 days. But another fabulous weekend!….
December 16th featured the by now traditional BB Xmas dinner at the Thai House restaurant, notable this year for an unexpected gift to the team halfway through the meal from “Santa Claus” – a box containing some oversized red, white and blue garters made out of what looked and felt like oily bin liners, and also containing a suitably seasonal poem which Malcolm was asked to read out to everyone. The poem had rhymes about everyone in the side except, suspiciously, John – could there possibly be a link between “Santa” and everyone’s favourite old goat?? (Decide for yourself – read the poem here). Then after a speech from Malcolm looking back at his 10 years with BB it was time for everyone’s favourite part of the evening – trying to match the bill and everyone’s contributions. Remarkably close this year.
Saturday 18th featured the also traditional St. Thomas day ‘tour’ of Wokingham, the tour as usual actually consisting of only 2 venues, the Market Place and the back bar of the Red Lion. This year the weather was particularly kind and at various times we had a reasonable sized audience watching. Because of this we ran through a fair amount of the repertoire, and were also pleased to have Andy make his first appearance with us in full BB kit, which he did in fine style once the safety pins were in place. And then on to the last performance of the year, at Nettlebed Folk Club on Monday 20th Dec, as a part repayment for Nettlebed’s contribution to our sword purchase earlier in the year. We appeared during the interval of the evening’s concert, by the excellent Arizona Smoke Review, and did a short set consisting of Sucking the Monkey, Coconuts and the Sword Dance. It was a different audience from our normal one, and the conditions were a bit tricky with a very slippery floor and somewhat confined space, both of which contributed to some difficulties in the Sword Dance. However the dance recovered well by the final figure and we seemed to get a good response from the audience, none of whom we came too close to decapitating this time.
And then that was it for 2004 ……. More next year, anyone?
Read a feature on the side in the October 2004 edition of ‘Best of British’ magazine written by Yvonne Baker!
