Calling All Mummers!

On the sixteenth day of Advent my 3-D tree gave to me...an Arctic fox! I have nothing further to say on the subject of Arctic foxes because my knowledge of them extends no further than they are foxes and they live in the Arctic. I don't know why but I have always imagined them to be better behaved than their British counterparts. None of that ripping apart bin bags or leaving their poo in the middle of towpaths malarkey, that's for sure. Anyway, let's move on and see what Kenneth's up to...

...‘Any suggestions?’ says Juan. ‘Any ideas about what we are going to do in order to gain entry to the festival auditions now that our plan of being the providers of many eggs has wandered off into the woodlands, never to be seen again?’ He glares at Kenneth the Phantomime, who is oblivious to the role he played in the wrecking of that particular plan.

‘I think…’ begins Kenneth.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ says Juan.

‘I THINK…’ continues Kenneth, doggedly, ‘that we should enter these auditions with the determination to actually win a place in the festival performance. It’s not going to be enough for us merely to gain entry through the gates. If we can pass the auditions, then we buy ourselves more time to curry favour with the Lord General Porpoise…’

‘…or the Dauphin Dolphin, as he is currently known,’ says Enrico.

‘…him as well,’ says Kenneth, not quite grasping that these two entities are one and the same, ‘and we can lull him into a false sense of security, friendship and bonhomie, so it will make it easier for you to capture him and for me to ask him all my questions whilst he is a captive audience, so to speak.’

Madame Bovary scratches her head. She isn’t thinking; it’s just that she’s wearing a particularly tight beret and she has a mild allergy to the wool. ‘I see what you mean,’ she says. ‘But what do you suggest we do?’

The Phantomime smiles and enigmatic smile. ‘I suggest we disguise ourselves as a band of travelling players,’ he says. ‘It is the right time of year to be masquerading as such so we won’t draw undue attention to ourselves. All the Christmas Mummers will be out and about, visiting villages in order to perform their traditional festive plays.’

‘Do you have to be a mum to be a mummer?’ says Madame Cholet. ‘As I said before, it’s been a long time since I laid an egg.’

The Phantomime shakes his head. ‘Absolutely not,’ he says. ‘All you need is energy, enthusiasm, a brain that will remember a few lines, and a horse’s skull on a stick.’

‘Eeuw,’ says Madame Tussaud, who isn’t generally known for her squeamishness.

‘And where, pray tell, are we to acquire the skull of a horse?’ says Enrico, immediately sensing an enormous equine hole in this plan.

The Phantomime looks around him. ‘There’s plenty of wood here,’ he says, waving at the trees. ‘We can whittle one. Anyone good at whittling?’

He is met with blank stares, then a good deal of eye contact avoidance and shuffling of feet. Madame Tussaud holds up her wing. ‘See that?’ she says, waving the tip of it in Kenneth’s face. He notices that the end of her wing is more blunted than pointed. ‘I got that whilst whittling models of the guillotine as souvenirs for the crowds who came to see the executions of the aristocrats’ (she spits which is VERY unladylike) ‘during the Glorious Revolution of my beloved France.’

‘You did THAT by whittling small bits of wood?’ says Kenneth.

‘All right, not the whittling bit,’ admits Madame Tussaud, ‘but the attachment of the miniature guillotine blades was very tricky, and then my stupid brother dared me to test one out and…well, the rest as they say, is l’histoire.’

Kenneth suppresses a snort of laughter. ‘Perhaps no whittling, then,’ he says. ‘But I am sure we can fashion some sort of wooden hobby horse from bits we find out here.’ He looks pointedly at Enrico.

‘Very well,’ sighs Enrico. ‘I’ll see what I can find.’

‘I shall come with you,’ says Madame Bovary, who has a bit of a soft spot for Enrico.

‘I shall, too,’ says Madame Cholet, who remembers only too well what happened the last time Madame Bovary had a soft spot for anyone.

The three set off into the woodlands.

‘What’s a mummers’ play, then?’ says Juan.

‘They are folk plays performed by troupes of usually amateur actors,’ says Kenneth. ‘Of course, I am no amateur…ahahahahahaha…but I am willing to lend my breadth of professional knowledge and expertise to the cause. The cast is traditionally male, so we’ll have to find something for the good lady hens to do – making costumes, or doing hair and make-up for example – so they don’t feel left out…’

‘Perhaps we could just buck the trend and let them perform in the play?’ suggests Juan.

‘It’s a radical thought,’ says Kenneth, ‘but hey – why not? They might lend a certain je ne sais quoi to proceedings. Anyway, I think, given it is Christmas, we should perform a play loosely based on the ‘Owd ‘Oss play. There’s a bit of singing in that, too. It’s all about a scraggy old horse who is close to death.’

‘Very Christmassy,’ says Juan.

‘Oh, it’s okay,’ says Kenneth. ‘He dies but then is brought back to life! It’s a Christmas miracle!’

Juan sinks his head into his hands. We’ll need a Christmas miracle if we’re going to make this work, he thinks. He looks at the Phantomime. His face is glowing with excitement as he chatters on nineteen to the dozen about how the performance will work and who should take what part. This is right up his theatrical street, thinks Juan. Look at him – mad as a box of frogs.

‘Of course,’ says Kenneth, ‘I shall adapt the play so that it makes the most of all the skills of the actors. We’ll need a modern twist, too, so we stand out from the rest of the auditions. I’m thinking, given what you’ve told me about the Lord General Porpoise, that maybe we could have the hobby horse lay an enormous golden egg. What do you think?’

‘I think it’s best if I don’t think anything,’ says Juan.