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After the Eye Show in 1977, Dave and Maggie, from Cornwall's Footsbarn Theatre,
stayed on in East Anglia. The plan was for them to help organise a
professional group of newage showmen. Admin, crew, promoters, performers,
multitaskers all, this group would travel about providing the kernel of a
string of fairs in locations all over the island of Albion.
In preparation for this the Coypu Show was devised. Based on Mick Sparksman's
cartoon strip it was song, dance and slapstick performed in front of cartoon
backdrops. There were about 25 people involved in the production. It was three
months rehearsal, with four shows to finish.
It was an exciting project, very enjoyable for those involved, but it didn't do
a lot with regard to getting that professional core together.
There were other reasons why the professional idea was left behind but I think
that most people preferred the committed amateur approach and the way the Coypu
Show worked out proved this. The site crews consisted of part time, self
employed and unemployed people who could juggle their time to spend an
occasional fortnight
in a field. The full time parents and workers were active in admin, and there
to take the strain come the weekend of the event. Although there were a few
people who were effectively showmen by trade, most were happy with the
part-time and voluntary way fairs had been organised. That was the way which
prevailed.
So there we were, early 1978, no magic Arts Council Grant, no professional
core, just a few bits of equipment, a hodload of experience and a plan to
create a number of new fairs...
The next three of months was spent sorting out sites for fairs and running a
few gigs, mostly
at Geldeston Village Hall. Sam the caretaker was a keen supporter of the fairs.
As spring came on some small outdoor events were held, inflateables and puppets
for the kids, music, mayhem and ritual for the big uns.
Then came Whit Bank Holiday and the first Albion Fair. This was a one
day event at Oaksmere Hall, near Diss. An avenue of mature lime trees, a level
field to the left and on the right level only beside the trees, the field
dipped to the right in a natural amphitheatre, with a stand of trees on a mound
at bottom centre. A high stage was built backed on to the mound, the usual
suspects and their neighbours turned out and a grand day was had by most.
The next three events were more one day affairs, the first and the third being
mistakes of a similar kind, though having different outcomes. They were both
one day tack-ons rather than self organised. This had worked well enough at the
Eye Show the previous year, and would do so again, to greater effect, later
that year. At these two the outcome wasn't so positive.
Downham Market was the only fair not held in a field. It was in a car park. A
car park complete with cars. Not a lot, but scattered about just so. Finally
fed up with waiting for them to go there was an attempt to shift one. The cost
of moving it was a slipped disk for Keith, site manager since the Barsham
years. It was a dampner on the day and pretty much marked his retirement from
that level of activity. A new generation took over and ran with what they'd
been learning as Keen Site Crew. That was one of the T shirts from the later
Barshams: Splendid Committee Person was the other.
It was the first time the new dome was used, one positive of a lacklustre day.
The tarmac and concrete, the lack of trees, drained the joy out of what might
elsewhere have been a friendly little event. Eventually the stalls went home,
the mingling entertainers returned to civvies and what was left was first gig
in the new dome. It was a good party and a poor day ended on a cheery note.
A week later we put the dome up at Strawberry Fair in Cambridge. This had been
started in 1974 by University students and ex students and is a one day
gathering on Midsummer Common near the centre of the city. For those of us who
were new to it, there were some surprises. We'd arrived on the Friday
afternoon, put up the dome and eventually crawled into the tents, at which
point we were the only thing on the common. We were used to spending from a few
days to a fortnight on site preparing for the weekend. There was going to be a
fair here tomorrow? It didn't seem possible. Up at 7 for a pee, one or two
vehicles being unloaded. An hour or two later, emerging for real into a
bustling and fast growing event, open field transformed into a warren of
streets of stalls, pitches and venues. Where'd they all come from??
Strawberry Fair has kept going, altering with the times, run every year for 33
years by a changing group of volunteers. Check out their website.
Returning to 1978. Blunderston. Properly spelled without the letter R. A
village fete is what it was really. A fete decked out as a medieval faire, with
the local experts (us) invited to participate. Held on the school field. The
regularly mowed school field. That was strange, none of the odd contours,
patches of thistles or hawthorn or boggy areas to work with or around. In fact
as sites go it was rather characterless.
That wasn't a problem, the trouble was is it was organized by the people whose
response to the theme was to go out and hire proper royal courtier style
costumes and to organize a (paying guests only) spit roast type feast for a
finale. Not a mindset that gelled well with the rough and ready approach of the
fair makers. The day bumbled along okay, children entertained, adults diverted,
but no spark.
Came the evening and left to perform were Ian Hinchcliffe and Roger Ely,
performance poets the pair of them. Faced with an utterly inappropriate
audience, of local worthies in period gear, Roger Ely did what any crazy poet
would do, carried on regardless. His perverse and scatalogical rants were so
out of line with the place and audience that Ian Hinchcliffe felt it necessary
to take protective action. Ian, normally as in yer face as the angriest
wordsmith, tried to distract the audience with daft antics, while Roger
continued to make verse of his attempts to masturbate the cat and other
incidents of his lost low life. Finally he had sense to stop and we all
scarpered before a medieval lynching took place.
By now the momentum was faltering, some of the old hands were tiring of the
responsibility and the site for the next fair was suddenly unavailable. A new
site in the same area was found, and a site meeting called to plan the layout.
Come the day and none of those regulars were to be seen, just a couple of the
site crew, who found themselves making decisions they usually left to others.
The absence of those others proved to be deliberate, a simple method of passing
the torch. Site management passed into the hands of a generation who had
responded to the energy of the Barsham and Bungay by asking 'what can I do to
help?'. Now there they were answering that same question for others.
Wildream Fair was not a big event, uncertainty over the site had messed up the
publicity, it was however a very good event. I'll leave it to more poetic souls
to try and catch the magic of the successful fairs. Suffice to say, when a fair
worked it was a heightened experience, there was joy and fresh warm laughter, a
spontaneous sense of community was generated, performers gave their best,
audiences responded to that, and when it was all over we all went home with
lighter step than we'd had on arrival.
A fortnight later it was Thornham Magna. That was a weather menaced one. I
think the rain held off until the Monday, but the threat was there throughout.
Shades of greys and greens. Albion was now in full gear, there were two more
fairs to go and they were likely to be big ones. Rougham was well organized,
and very near some large towns, while the last event of the season was the
Eye Show, a longstanding popular country show.
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