Mystery Plays coming back?

Mask made for one of the plays

Something is being planned. Over several years the Penkhull Mystery Plays involved the local community in theatrical projects to bring people together. The plays bought a mixture of fact and fiction, history and spirituality together to create a one day festival of fun to penkhull village Green. Usually in early or mid July.

Up to 400 people would be involved in making props and costumes, acting and setting up the play and other work. All these activities built around the central performance where local adults and children got together to bring stories such as the history of the Trent and Mersey canal, Jonah and the Whale, the song of Solomon, a history of the 1842 peasants revolt in the Potteries and other interesting and fun stories onto the village green as a substantial play.


The organisers also included singing and making music for the shows. Writing scripts, putting on seperate performances for the day including morris dancing, maypole dancing  local choirs, brass bands, Ukelele players and a tower of song where individual musicians could perform. There was also an annual tug of war competition and circus skills workshops on the village green. A recent introduction was the Titchy Theatre where new writing was put on as playlets by a small number of volunteer actors. There were also stalls for such things as bakers and crafters and local charities together with plant sales.
It was only as Covid began that the Mystery Plays were toned down and had to be suspended. But with the 100th anniversary of the uniting of the six towns into the City of Stoke on Trent and the 20th (is it 25?) Anniversary of the Mysteries it feels like an important time to bring it back to Penkhull.

Too wit too woo

Tawny owl https://g.co/kgs/tciyaEu

Not real owls!

Just heard owls hooting in Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent. They were going too whit, too woo. That means there are a pair because they share the call. The male hoots one part and the female responds (or it might be the other way round) I think they must be tawny owls but it’s years since I’ve heard any. I can remember hearing a pair regularly 10 or 15 years ago. Perhaps they have migrated in? Good to hear them. Odd I’m wearing an owl patterned top today!

Can I be funny?

I actually wrote some 3 minute plays for the Titchy Theatre at the weekend.

One was based on Samuel Becketts “Waiting for Godot”, but my version was “Waiting for Gordon”.

The idea was that two cooks are standing outside the village hall waiting for Gordon Ramsey to come and judge a cookery competition.

First they see a man walking up the hill, but it can’t be Gordon as he’s wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a guitar. The contestants realise it’s a local man and that guitars are not cookery implements, those are called banjos!

Then they see someone else, but although he’s carrying a suitcase and has blond hair and looks like Gordon, he goes into a local bed and breakfast hotel and is not the famous chef.

One of them confesses that they are not sure if Gordon is coming today or tomorrow and cannot check as they don’t have Gordon’s agents phone number.

Finally they ask what time it is and realise that their pavlova will be ruined and their Victoria sponge will be burnt. The final line is “oh well, we will have to come back tomorrow!”

I actually got a few laughs (the script was better that the explanation, and the actors helped make it funnier!)

Too busy to blog!

What a day! I went up to the Harpers Titchy Theatre event today. We held a small theatre in the round, with short two page scripts. Funny and poignant, thought provoking and hopefully memorable.

In addition a local author had a stall selling her books, we had various stalls selling knitware, tee shirts, some glassware, turned wood pieces, penkhull mystery plays memorabilia. Plus the obligatory raffle and tombola. I am currently drinking the raffle prize I won.

We were not only entertained by the actors, but also Ukelele players and Clay Chorus choir.

There were lovely cakes, scones, sandwiches and ice creams for sale. Plus tea, coffee and juice.

All in all it went really well. Hopefully enough funds were raised towards staging a full Mystery play event in Penkhull next year, which would be the twentieth anniversary of the community event.

Down

People aren’t around, and if they were I don’t want to bother them. Some memories have been arriving on my Facebook page and I remembered what fun I was having ten years ago. People were there then, a group who worked together. Work was OK, life was satisfying.

Now? I feel shattered, broken, I’ve caught myself crying a few times. I’ve got things planned for later on, so I hope I’ll be OK. Life is up and down at the moment. I’m sharing this here because it’s better to get things off your chest. I need to unstick myself and stop thinking about things. But worries assert themselves.

This was triggered by adverts for funeral plans and wills on the TV and seeing seven or eight police cars and an ambulance up the hill last night. What happened? Are people OK? Nothing in the news, but anxiety bites again.

Penkhull Mystery Plays

Ten years ago, three horseheads of the apocalypse!

Up until Covid we were merrily holding Mystery Plays almost every July. We had a fallow year where we did other things, but the central play was missing. But now a group of residents are working towards a 20th anniversary performance in 2025.

So on Saturday 6th July 2024 we are holding a Titchy Theatre fundraising event to try and enthuse people to get involved for next year. The event will be in Penkhull Village Hall from 12.30 to 2.30pm.

We had fun creating props from willow withies and paper and glue. The horses were based on Picasso style ideas.

Wassail!

Imagine 500 villagers with flaming torches. Domesday Morris dance group amongst them wearing ‘tatters’ (white shirts and black trousers and boots with waistcoats with strips of cloth hanging loose, topped with hats covered in ivy and bird feathers.

Plus Penkhull brass band, and us, the Mystery Singers choir regaling the crowd with various Wassail songs.

We walked around the boundary of Penkhull and sang in front of the ancient ‘bloody’ apple tree halfway down Trent Valley road, then around to local pubs to sing a wassail to all of them. For the first time in ages I felt happy.

Singing

I went to choir practice tonight. It was with trepidation and I was very nervous, but I’m glad I went. Breathing in and out, stretching my lungs, concentrating on the words and the emotions of each song. Gradually I felt a bit more like myself. It was scary and upsetting to start off with but by the end of the session I had relaxed a bit.

The only problem was that when I got home with a friend man in high vi’s trousers was wandering in the middle of the road. He watched us as we got out of the car, so we stood outside and loudly discussed if “Tom” or “Pete” were still up. Pretending someone was already in the house. Then I looked at the man and said I would ring the police. He wandered off and my friend sat in her car for five minutes watching out for me. Anxiety is a bad thing.