BELLS & WHISTLES

Morris dancers are in high demand on May Day, performing in pubs and village greens across the land in a folk tradition that dates back centuries

ROSE SHEPHERD

In February 1599, for a wager, the acclaimed Shakespearian comic actor Will Kemp danced every step of the 125 miles from London to Norwich. With him went Thomas Slye, playing a tabor, Kemp’s servant William Bee, and George Sprat, ‘overseer’. The thespian “head-master of Morrice dauncers” would afterwards relate how he “began frolickly to foote it” from the Lord Mayor of London’s house to the Norwich marketplace, in his book Kemps Nine Daise Wonder (it actually took him 23). With such energy did Kemp hoof it that a butcher who joined him in Sudbury dropped out after half a mile, “for indeed my pace in dauncing is not ordinary,” boasted Kemp. But then, the folk dance we know as Morris is always performed with vigour. In pub car parks and…

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Britain (Digital) - 1 Issue, May/Jun 2024

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