The Warburton Souling Play - The Post Revival Period
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Post Revival Gallery



This page covers the period post what we nominally call the revival years of 1978 to 1990 and up to nominally 3 years ago.  These post 1990 years are covered in retrospect, however, as those years since this website was set up are covered in much more detail.

The last 3 seasons are covered on the Present Day pages

After the first 10 or so years following the Play’s revival it settled down to a steady, if at times a somewhat shaky existence.

The early 1990s started out with the Play still being predominantly performed by members of Bollin Morris although as this decade went on it became apparent that there was a drift away from in being a pure Morris activity as the Play took on an identity of its own. This was partly caused by some people drifting away from Bollin Morris but still carrying on with the Play and partly due to a number of other people taking an interest from outside Morris dancing.

By the start of the 21st century the Play had lost all its connection with Bollin Morris and was now a separate entity. The people involved in performing the Play had also through a phase of rationalisation and so we were left with a core of enthusiastic Gang members who were performing the Play year after year for anything from one night to every night of the season.

By 2002 the Play took another step forward when we performed at the Warburton Autumn Fair that is held each year in the parish church, St Werburgh's. This was in the afternoon of our last day of the season and thus turned what was previously the last evening into a whole day of Souling. 2002 set the 'blueprint' for what was to become the normal last day of the season with the Souling and the Autumn Fair dates being chosen such that they aligned with each year.

2002 was followed by another major improvement in 2003 when the Play took on a maturity not seen before. This followed a decision to restrict the Gang members to one character each so as they could concentrate on that one part. In the past people would do what parts were required to get the play out on a certain night and most people played more that one character during a season. However as the make up of the Gang  was rationalised as previously mentioned it was possible to let people concentrate on one part for that season thus enabling a more consistent performance of that character and with a better interaction between the various other characters. This also gave much less of a problem in the 'Costume Dept' as we no longer had to have a range of outfits that fitted the full size range of the Gang members. We also introduced new kit for the Enterer and Driver with the latter returning to the style of kit we had in the first few years of the revival.

These two improvements formed the basis of our approach for around 10 years as will be detected in the reports from 2002 onwards. However it now has to be said that these past few years we've become more relaxed regarding the 'one person, one character' approach. We feel that having gone through that phase it has provided the improvements needed, it has allowed everyone to see the best approach to a part, that now each member is able to perform two or maybe even three parts without disrupting the general ethos of the performances. 

The links below can be used to find what information we have available for the the various years once the Play had become re-established. In some cases it will take you to the Gallery page for that year as we only have a photographic record, whereas later years will have some reports of the various performances with the itinerary as well as the Gallery page. Where information is not available it may simply be a case of time having precluded the setting up of the particular page here or it my be that no record exists. If you are a former Gang member reading this and you have some pictures available we'd very much like to hear from you.  (Contact details on the Homepage)


Links to the Post Revival 'year' pages (where available)
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
2006  2007  2008  2009  2010 
2011  2012  2013  2014  2015 
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
2021

This page updated: 17th  October 2022.