Mumming Plays

Somewhere in that odd bit between Xmas and New Year, where people start dissolving into a creeping puddle of unpredictability and fatigue, you might find yourself with some ‘free’ time on your hands. This is ideal if you happen to live in rural England, as it’s round about this time of year when you can catch some ‘mumming’ plays doing the rounds in the local pubs. Mumming has nothing to do with the sexual conquest of ‘older’ ladies, nor does it involve mums at all really. In fact you might also hear it more frequently being called tipteering.

A Mumming play is really an old folk tradition of performing a sort of seasonal play in a street (or more often in a series of pubs). The plays are merry spectacles to see on a midwinter day; colourful, bright, noisy, musical, funny and beery. They are fairly hard to follow sometimes, but the general absurd comedy atmosphere that they evoke around them is more important. The events in each play vary across the country, but you might find yourself in the company of a King George, a  jester, people with black faces (not as a racial reference), people with rather large beards, a horse, a doctor and even a Turkish knight.

I love these quirks of society and after seeing one again this year in Surrey, I felt heartened that England has hung on to an important element of it’s folk culture. The experience of being in amongst cheery folk, clutching an oaky cider, watching a Mumming play and feeling my cheeks flush red in the warmth of the pub was wonderful. I heartily recommend it if you get chance to catch one this festive season.