{"id":34742,"date":"2025-12-18T12:11:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=34742"},"modified":"2025-12-18T12:11:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:11:56","slug":"abingdon-traditional-mummers-on-the-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=34742","title":{"rendered":"Abingdon Traditional Mummers on the town"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025121801.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe Abingdon Traditional Mummers were out last night, performing at most of the pubs in the town centre. I caught up with them as they were just finishing their ten-minute play at the Punch Bowl. Although they were running late, they waited until everyone had finished their drinks before moving on.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025121802.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nAs ever, Father Christmas introduced the play and collected donations, which this year go towards the St Ethelwold\u2019s Appeal (see yesterday\u2019s blog). A number of people &#8211; something close to groupies &#8211; from the Punch Bowl then followed the Mummers on to their next stop, the Tipsy Mercer.<\/p>\n<p>At the Tipsy Mercer a quiz was in progress, but the quizmaster broke off proceedings, and the Mummers were rewarded with a fully attentive audience. This is not always the case, as in some pubs people carry on drinking and talking regardless of the loud interruptions of the play.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025121803.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe version performed appeared to be the Sunningwell play (from the nearby village), with five characters: Father Christmas, King George, Bold Slasher, the Doctor, and Mrs Finney. After much boasting, King George and Bold Slasher fight, and King George is killed.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025121807.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe Doctor is calls and tries a series of unlikely remedies. There were plenty of jokes throughout, including several involving the younger members of the audience &#8211; some of whom were absent-mindedly squirted with water from the Doctor\u2019s syringe &#8211; before the Doctor finally succeeds in bringing King George back to life.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025121808.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nA second sword fight then follows, in which King George kills Bold Slasher. At this point Mrs Finney, donning a headscarf, is called for. Brandishing her flashing umbrella &#8211; with a squeaky voice like a character out of the goonshow, she restores Bold Slasher to life.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Abingdon Traditional Mummers Wish you a Merry Christmas\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/z9fMHPlqqDU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe performance ended, as tradition demands, with a rendition of <em>We Wish You a Merry Christmas<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Abingdon Traditional Mummers were out last night, performing at most of the pubs in the town centre. I caught up with them as they were just finishing their ten-minute play at the Punch Bowl. Although they were running late, they waited until everyone had finished their drinks before moving on. As ever, Father Christmas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}