London - Death of the Morris Dance?

Britain’s least enduring medieval meme, Morris-dancing, sits on the brink of extinction, warns Charlie Corcoran, bagman of the Morris Ring.




Britain’s least enduring medieval meme, Morris-dancing, sits on the brink of extinction, warns Charlie Corcoran, bagman of the Morris Ring. He’s not being alarmist enough though. The Morris tradition isn’t so much sitting on the brink as leaping off the brink after a 500 yearlong run up and hoping that a pair of handkerchiefs waved in the air will parachute the decent.

Apparently the dance for is just too embarrassing for the latest generation and as a result may disappear from our nightclubs and prime-time television schedules within the next 20 years. However, considering that no-one in Britain danced at all during that repressive period between Ivanhoe and The Beatles, it’s quite impressive it lasted this long. Those thick-skinned patriots of history who would rather strike themselves off the sexual market then watch the most resolutely old-fashioned tradition on earth die should congratulate themselves.

Realistically the catapult stands more chance of being reintroduced by English troops in Afghanistan then this does of sweeping playgrounds and donk clubs. Badly educated as the kids may be, they’re not thick enough to be convinced that dressing like a medieval hipster and prancing in malls is more fun than kicking the f*&$ out of one and posting it on Bebo.

But, if its practitioners really do want to stare the ceaseless march of progress in the face shouting, “Thou shall not pass!” while their bells jingle about their thighs, then they need to rebrand the Morris, make it less screamingly shitty, and embrace its pagan past.

Have them bursting through the Camberley Shopping Emporium on oxen, nude aside from their ceremonial bells, handkerchiefs and the pickled umbilical chords of the still-born. Have them charge a 20-foot phallus through the gates of York Minster Abbey, burn the priests, and paint the pulpit in thick seminal emulsion. Grant every registered Morris-dancer the right to binge on psychotropic mead and run through Penge raping the pure and dancing to the devil.

Either that or you get some celebrity endorsement. Am I the only person who thinks Kanye’s got something of the Morris about him?

ALEX MILLER