pub

A great night out. Great pubs with generous, welcoming landlords and staff plus generous and ‘up for it’ audiences who were keen to engage and had lots of questions. Great. 

A frisson of first venue nerves (as if we haven’t done this before!) before bold Andy burst open the pub doors roaring away ‘we’re here!’. Hope & Anchor always great, plenty of room. Good to see Monty and a few other watchers who had travelled specifically to see us. 

A short trip to the Queen’s Head, sadly witnessing a rear end shunt at the pedestrian crossing – surely nobody was distracted by our festive attire? Into the packed Queen’s head – our performance was up close and personal with punters. Sons had to die tidily in nooks and crannies. Rather good, now into our stride. Little Swing Swang’s borrowed sword splintered into bits much to the audience’s amusement (sorry Tom, sorry Elliott – a childhood treasure?). Excellent beers again. 

Onto the Crispin, another gem of a pub. We were now at our peak…..even winning around a heads down, serious card school. We are a bit hard to ignore when at fill bore… Great range of interesting beers – smoked Hogsback and Plum Porter. Many of us were not driving (with thanks to the saintly Mike who was) and we made the most of it. 

Off to the Ship, a quick gurn through the window showed rapt crowds intent on a televised footie match. Helpful staff directed us into the small bar – my word this was a bit of a bear pit! We had to up our game and raise our voices – Tim having to work hard to top the hubbub. Masses of jolly heckling and noise. We loved it – a sort of thespian moshpit.  A ‘dead’ Little Swing Swang was surprised by a big, beery, beardy punter applying some chest CPR to revive him, even more surprised when mouth to mouth resuscitation was suggested…. A generous lad bought us all a round, cheers! A brill end to a very good evening.

Apparently a number of people asked if we were Am Dram performers. Lots of generous giving, many people amused as Father Christmas whipped out his ‘sum up’ machine for electronic donations from his outfit.

Importantly lots of people enjoyed this traditional jollity and we answered plenty of questions about what we were doing. 

Mumming is alive and well, what a joy to take our traditional play out to the public. 

Pick of the beers – Titanic’s Plum Porter

Performers

Andy Pobjoy (N), Keith Colbert (TS), Mike Clarke (RMK), Mark Russell (Knobbly Capitaine), Phil Goddard (FC), Tim Lloyd (Quack), Ian Sutherland (KG), Ross Healey (LSS)