Mummers' Plays Revisited

Peter Harrop offers a reappraisal of mummers’ plays, which have long been regarded as a form of ‘folk’ or ‘traditional’ drama, somehow separate from the mainstream of British theatre.

This fresh view of folk and tradition explores how mummers’ plays emerged in an 18th century theatrical environment of popular spouting clubs and private theatricals, yet quickly transformed into ‘traditionary’ drama with echoes of an ancient past. Harrop suggests that by the late 19th century the plays had be...