Crwmpyn john mummers

We went out with a different Mummers play last night, performing Crwmpyn John in the Swansea Valley. This old play was performed by youngsters from Halloween to Christmas in the coal mining villages of Ynysmeudw, Ystalyfera & Godregraig from around the turn of the C20th until the late 1950s. Members of the Pontardawe Valley Folk Club kept it going until the 1980s and Sweyns Ey Morris have carried on performing it ever since.

We enjoyed the hospitality of the pubs we visited and folk made generous donations to our collecting buckets which will all go to Wales Air Ambulance! So far we have collected £652.93 for this life saving, worthy charity. 

So, we visited the Miller’s Arms Ynystawe, The Butcher’s Alltwen, Y Gwachel Pontardawe, The Chameleon Ystradgynlais and the Wern Fawr Ystalyfera where Crwmpyn John introduced the play to unsuspecting audiences who had no idea that mortal combat was about to take place right there before them, between King John and Bold Robin Hood! King John is killed in a brutal fashion with a wooden sword and then a Ten Pound Doctor is summoned up to cure the fallen knight with a magic potion contained in a hip flask. A bouncy ‘Jingle-in’ character dressed in rag jacket and with bells a jingling enters the room inviting money from the audience and the whole jolly event was rounded off with a short song and merry Christmas tunes on the fiddles & melodeon played by Sian, Di & Keith. The photos show what actually happened with Paul being Crwmpyn John, Geoff taking the part of King John, Alistair finding his true alter character in Robin Hood, Keith as Doctor Brown and Di as Jingle In, and Sian as herself playing fiddle.

With luck, what we collected will help keep the rotors spinning on the Wales Air Ambulance!