Context:

Location: North Somerset (?), Somerset, England (ST----)
Year: Col. 1913 to 1916
Time of Occurrence: Christmas
Collective Name: [Not given]

Source:

R.J.E.Tiddy
The Mummers' Play
Oxford, University Press, 1923, pp.159-160

Cast:

Text:

Father Christmas

In come I old Father Christmas,
Welcome or welcome not,
I hope old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
On my back I carry a pack,
In my hand a pan.
Try to help me if you can.

King George the Third

In comes I King George the Third
{gap in text}
With my arms I break down the prison walls
and set the prisoners free.

Black Prince of Paradise

In come I the Black Prince of Paradise,
born in a fiery hole.

King George the Third

Stand off thou black and American dog.
And not let a word be said,
For if I draw my sword to Thee
I'll surely crack thy head.

Black Prince of Darkness

How canst Thou crack my head?
My head is made of cannon balls.
My body's made of steel,
My arms and legs of the first-class brass
I challenge thee to feel.

King George the Third

Pull out thy sword to fight,
pull out thy purse to pay,
For recompense will I have before Thou go away.

Black Prince of Darkness

No recompense will I give, no money will I pay,
But thee and I shall fight it out before we go away.

{They fight and the Black Prince of Darkness falls wounded.}

King George the Third

Doctor, Doctor, where art thee ?
The Turk is wounded in the knee.
Hello, here comes old Jack the quack Doctor.

Philip Vincent

I'll let thee know my name isn't Jack the quack Doctor.
{He strikes . . . on the side of the head.}
My name is Philip Vincent the noble Doctor.
I have a little bottle in my side pocket
which I call the okum pokum drop.
A little drop on the head, a little drop on the heart.
Rise up again and take thy part.

File History:

1995-07-01 - Scanned & OCRed by Peter Millington
1998-05-09 - Encoded by Peter Millington
1999-09-15 - Year of collection adjusted by Peter Millington
2024-10-11 - TEI-encoded by Peter Millington

Extras:

Dramaturgical Chart

Dramaturgical chart for 91st--tr

The chart reveals the dramaturgical structure of the play by showing which speeches in the script are spoken by which character. Vertical lines indicate stage directions.

TEI-encoded File

A TEI-encoded XML version of this text can be downloaded here.

Text Relatives Map

See how many of the lines in this text also appear in other plays:
  • As a histogram sorted by the number of shared lines
  • On a map with markers sized according to the number of shared lines

Other Information

There may be more about this text at:
https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/christmas-play-north-somerset-1913-1916.