Dorset's traditional 'mummers' gear up for season finale

The Frome Valley Morris Mummers, based in Weymouth, have been performing a mumming play through the festive period.

Mumming is a curious custom in which heavily disguised folk perform plays in houses, pubs and other community venues to earn a little extra Christmas money.

This group of 'mummers' has been performing a play, believed to have been staged in Broadwey up until the First World War and revived again in 1978.

The costumes are based on those that Thomas Hardy supervised during a 1920 production of Return of the Native, which features a mumming play in a key development of the novel’s plot. The group says the strange hats were historically unique to Dorset plays.

The Frome Valley Morris Mummers gave 15 performances across seven nights in December 2019. Locations have included pubs, a shopping centre, the street, a café and a drama club.

Perhaps the most memorable was a tour of Dorchester finishing in a packed Stinsford church for 'Going the Rounds', a carol evening of Dorset songs.

David Milner, organiser of the group, said: "There has been a revival of mumming plays in the last 40 years. Many use one of the over 600 written down in locations from Cornwall to Aberdeen before they died out. Others have new words. Dorset boasts one of the surviving examples at Symondsbury, performed nearly every year since the early 19th century.

"The plays are taken out over the midwinter period and feature a range of characters dressed in disguise, at least one fight and a resurrection by a doctor, sometimes helped by other players.

"Some of them feature slapstick and knockabout humour, others are more serious in tone. All present a mystery which asks questions, as all good art does."

The Mummers will give their final midwinter performance of their play with an evening of entertainment at Bothenhampton Village Hall at 7.30pm on Friday, January 10.

All are welcome for the evening of drama, music and dancing. The group welcomes donations.