Droll

In 1644 Christmas was made illegal. Christmas didn’t die.

Just two years after the Puritans banned theatre, Father Christmas received the same treatment. Shoved alongside each other in the Clink, a curious cross-pollination occurred between the illegalDrollcomedy plays and archaic Christmas folk festivities that had been repressed by religious authorities. A strange chimera was conceived.

Just over a hundred years ago every village in England had it's own unique variation of a “mummers play,” handed down from family to family for generations, for centuries, a living piece of Christmas folk tradition. With ridiculous costumes and bizarre plots involving turkey snipes, duels, Beelzebub and rising from the dead, today most have been lost and of the few that were written down only a minority are still performed, by local enthusiasts and revived folk groups.

The award-winningOwle Schreametheatre company tell the strange history of Yuletide in England, whilst presenting an unpredictable and semi-improvised selection of rough, wild, raucous and bawdy Christmas folk plays from the 17th to the 20th centuries;unique, interactive, and genuinely engaging; wyrd festivities and drunken, unmissable theatre with hot, mulled cider thrown in for good measure.

There will be Wassail.