What fun! I love hearing about your mumming exploits. I'm thinking that if light sabres are coming into play, maybe the Doctor would look good wearing a super-long multicoloured-striped scarf :)

I used to be a member of a living history society specialising in high-quality medieval displays. Every year the society had a private winter feast, and one year I staged a fifteenth-century mumming play: St George, Turkish knight, Doctor, dragon etc. It was all done with careful attention to period accuracy, but with a very light-hearted touch, and I was delighted to learn that the fellow I had asked to play the dragon was a trained firebreather. Nastily, I kept this from my great friend who was playing St George, who was taking things rather seriously, and we equipped him with a spear with a wooden tip "for safety". So the first he knew of it was during the actual performance, when as he attacked the dragon with his mighty spear held high, the dragon took a swig from a hip flask. Thinks, "Funny time to have a drink." The dragon exhaled a highly creditable jet of fire, deliciously dramatic in the candlelit hall, and the tip of St George's spear burst into flames to the raucous merriment of the general assembly and somewhat to the discomfiture of St George himself - who, however, made a fine recovery and threw himself back into the fray with a smoking weapon and a defiant attitude.

Interesting stuff! thanks for that :) I can't remember where I found the text we used, unfortunately - probably in one of the books I studied at university, and all our books are in storage - but if I come across it again I'll double-check the date and sourcing. Its speeches were simpler than the folkplay one, but it followed a similar plot.

Yay!Go, Anonymous!:-)