Jubilee Arts Digital Library

The Jubilee Arts Archive collection in Sandwell offers a fascinating record of the people and communities from the period 1974-94.

The collection represents a complex portrait which has both local and national significance in that it also documents the development of the community arts movement in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. You can search either by theme (ie. Youth, Festival, Performance etc) or by place name (ie. Charlemont, Wednesbury etc); and also by year.

Alongside this digital library of over 3,000 images, as an introduction the Key Images section offers 50 photographs with a short explanatory text offering some contextual background.

Notes on Mummers’ Play 1974

The first page of the rewritten Mummers’ Play script in local dialect, 1974

Dr. Brown: “Ah’ve bin to Itaty, Titaly, Dudley Port, an’ ode Spain, But ah’m really glad to be back in de Friar Park again.”

Mrs Slasher: “Oh ’Ector, ’Ector, worramah gonna do? Me poor baby, ’is body’s all numb.”

St. George and Hector go head to head, Mummer’s Play, 1976

Safety Sam, the referee: “Nah that’s a foul. Yoh’ve gone too far. Tha’s the second liberty yoh’ve took, let’s ’ave yer nairme in me little book.”

The 1976 Mummer’s Play in the community centre utilised a familiar singalong.

Enter Bold Hector: “Yes, ahm a heathen, so I am, a godless knight of auld, the Preacher shrinks away from me an’ Jess Yates leave me cauld!”

Dr Brown: “Owed on! Owed on, the! Gie us a chance! Wi’ yoh moanin’ an’ mitherin’ an’ chunterin’ on, ’ow con yer expect me to cairve this poor mon?”

Press cutting, Midland Chronicle 1974

Mummer’s Play, 1974

Mummers’s Play, 1974

Teachers Notes on Mummer’s Play, courtesy of Brian Wilkes

Mummer’s Play, 1974

Screengrab from super 8mm film, Brades Village, 1983