| The
Parish of Warburton History The Revival The Post Revival Period The Present Day The 2024 Season  |
 The illustration above is that of The Saracen's Head in Warburton, the home of the Warburton Souling Play. |
Welcome
to The
Warburton Souling Play.
This website is all about the Warburton Souling Play, its revival and its welfare today. You'll find details about the history of the play, the background to its revival together with details of its performance up to the present time. We've also included some brief details about Warburton Parish. The details have been broadly split up into three periods. First we have 'The Revival' roughly defined as years from 1978 up to 1990, the 'Present Day' covers the three most recent years and the 'Post Revival' covers the period between. |
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Souling in 2024
Another season of Souling has been and gone, however, whilst it was a success from the performance point of view, it has been tinged with a great amount of sadness following the death of one of the Gang's original members who unfortunately succumbed to cancer a few days after the Souling season had finished.
Brain
Corringan as the Enterer - 5th November 2022
The season started as usual with our first performance at the Saracen's Head on the 1st November. We then toured around the area for three other nights to finish with the last performance at the Saracen's following by the customary evening of music. More of the detail can be found on the Souling 2024 pages.
This year we elected to pass on any funds collected to Macmillan Cancer Support as this is something very dear to our hearts with Brain's illness and subsequent departing of this world.
Souling in 2023
That's it now, another season of Souling all done for another year. We finished off with two performances, one at the Warburton Autumn Fair then the final performance at the Saracen's Head on Saturday 11th November.
This year we performed with the main season of the 1st through to the 4th November.A slightly shorter season than normal, however we did a fifth short day on the 11th November to perform at the fair and then the Saracen's Head for a final performance before we 'buried the head' for another year. All the details of where we've been can still be seen and are to be found on the Itinerary page.
The first night was a short tour of four pubs and the photo below shows the Gang after the first performance of the year at the Saracen's Head.
As per last year we have elected to pass on any monies collected to the Trafford and South West Manchester branch of the MS Society. That was duly done on Wednesday 13th December at the Life Centre in Sale during one of their regular coffee mornings:
Pictured here in the orange are Jenny and Andrew Maines (rear left and front centre) and Judy Kirk (rear right) together with Nicola Lewis at the front with John, Dave and Laurence from the Souling Gang. During the presentation we were able to give them a cheque for £950 as a result of this year's collection.
Souling in 2022
We've now finished with this year's season of Cheshire Souling with the Warburton Souling Play. The venues Warburton ChurchWarburton Churchhere we went can be found on the Itinerary page.
Following two years of us being restricted by the Covid-19 pandemic this year was back to more of our normal routine of going out for five or six nights, in this case for five staring on Tuesday the 1st November and finishing on Saturday 5th. So the 1st perfomance was in the Saracen's Head on the 1st November as usual and the last was also there on the 5th November.
The Gang after the performance in Ye Olde No3 in Little Bollington on our second night out.
This year we were very happy to give all our proceeds to the Trafford and South West Manchester branch of the MS Society. We therefore attended one of their coffee mornings on Wednesday 14th December and presented them with a cheque for £1000.00.
Ruth Mannell on behalf of the MS Society accepting the cheque for £1000 .
Souling in 2021
Following last year's Souling that had to make use of modern technology to 'make the play happen' this year it was good to be out and about again, even if only for a couple of evenings this year. Those two days were the 1st and the 6th November.
We did two performances on Monday 1st with the first performance at the Saracen's Head at 8:00pm. We then went to the Black Swan at Hollins Green, however this turned out to have closed early so instead we went to the Red Lion a bit further back down the road where we were made very welcome.
The second day, the 6th November, started at the Lymm Heritage Centre where we're performing at 4:00pm and after that it was the Brewery Tap followed by the Spread Eagle. From here we went to Barn Owl in Agden Wharf then our second attempt at performing in the Black Swan in Hollins Green. We finish off back at the Saracen's Head a s usual to complete our season of Souling for this year.
For the collection, we decided not to do a formal collection as that involves us going round the audience with a hat as we felt was still something that we should avoid for this year. Instead the hat was left on the bar or on the floor where we had performed. It still resulted in donations and all funds collected that way will be passed onto Lymm Heritage Centre.
It is still strange times we find ourselves in, and we still had to make do with what we could realistically achieve under the circumstances.Souling in 2020
The Warburton Souling Play in 2020 was not what we're all used to. Unfortunately the Covid-19 pandemic had wreaked havoc across the country, indeed across the world, and with various lockdowns imposed right at the last minute together with pubs being closed we were left with little choice but to resort to modern technology to help us out - technology that was unheard of when these plays started many, many years ago!
On Monday 2nd November we therefore all made ourselves comfortable in our respective Covid free environments, with the neccessary liquid refreshment of course(!), and with the aid of aforementioned modern technology produced two performances of the Warburton Souling Play. These performances are available for your delight on the Souling in 2020 page.
Strange times we found ourselves in, and indeed still do, however we had to make do with what we could achieve under the circumstances.
Also for a bit more help for those not familiar with the Play then please take time to have a look around to see what it's all about using the menus top left. The Parish of Warburton gives you an idea of where the Play comes from, History, a brief interpretation of this type of play and details of the Warburton play itself. For an alternative approach, you'll be able to get a good impression by looking at what we've got up to in the last few years by visiting the 'present' pages. And for those wanting to look further back, try the Past Galleries from where you'll find links to some much earlier seasons.
If you need help in tracking down a specific page or you're looking for specific information then try the Site Map.
Souling
Site
updated: 16th
November 2024.
This page
updated: 16th
November 2024.