Morris dancing into Olympic history

"Morris dancing for the Olympics opening ceremony!" was the rallying cry. There was some wishful thinking, some campaigning - notably by Sir Bob Russell MP, of Colchester - and then some resignation. As with so much of British public life, and our sporting life in particular, it seemed that we were doomed to disappointment.

But then a miracle happened. Looking back on it now, I'm delighted to say that it seems entirely in keeping with the rest of Britain's Olympic fortnight, our amazing haul of medals and the unfamiliar sensation that this country had finally pulled something out of the bag at the moment when it was actually needed.

For on Sunday evening, while the nation watched the Olympics closing ceremony, some morris dancers appeared behind Eric Idle.

My eyes widened. I leapt up from the sofa where I was arrayed, slopping my glass of wine dangerously close to a blameless child who was loitering nearby, pointed at the screen and yelled "morris dancers!" Everyone else in the room thought I was being eccentric. I was.

But I've followed this story for several years and the unheralded appearance of Bristol University's Rag Morris and the Blackheath Morris Men was the denouement to a long running saga. I'd hoped to see something unlikely happen - the definition of a good story - for morris dancing to appear centre stage for a change. And, blow me down, it actually did.

It was the best possible end to an amazing Olympic fortnight (though for the record, I also liked Annie Lennox's bit and thought Gary Barlow was very brave to be there, considering everything that was happening in his personal life. And Bradley Wiggins. And Andy Murray. And... and I could go on all day.)

"It was pretty stunning really," said Joss Smithson, bagman of the Bristol University Rag Morris side, on Tuesday when he'd started to come down from the experience. "We were first approached about it in February and we weren't allowed to tell anybody. A number of morris sides were approached - four or five, I think - and we went down for an audition at 3 Mills Studio somewhere in East London. They got back to us about a week later to say that they'd chosen us.

"There were 24 of us for the ceremony: four sides of six. We're associated with Bristol University, in that we're a society there. But the members are students, ex-students and some people who work at the university. There were a few who couldn't take part because of work commitments but we still had enough people and we all had to sign a confidentiality agreement.

"It was a once in a lifetime gig and we wanted to be a part of it. And although it was all done on a voluntary basis the Olympics provided some nice things for us: we got free Oyster cards to get about London and they made us all new hankies especially for the ceremony." Bonzer.

"We also had to make new coats for 24 people, which was something that turned out to be really good fun. We spent the days hanging out together, making new rags and bells. This was because the kit that we had at the beginning was a different colour for everyone. For instance, mine is bright yellow and orange. But they wanted us to look a bit more uniform and at one of the meetings early on they pointed at one person in our side and said 'We'd like you all to look like him'.

"Our main performance was during Eric Idle's piece Always Look on the Bright Side, along with Blackheath Morris, rollerskating nuns, bangra dancers, a cross-dressing Welsh choir and some Roman centurians."

He paused for a moment, apparently to consider the lunacy of that sentence, then laughed.

"Then, when The Who were playing, they got all the volunteers to stream across the centre of the stage, where we had a bit of a party and jumped up and down waving our hankies.

"Overall I'd say we had about ten rehearsals but Eric was only there for a couple of them towards the end. And though we didn't really get to meet him personally, there was a bit of banter over the walkie talkies with him saying 'Well done, guys. That was a good one.'

"The whole experience was kind of crazy. Apparently for that section of the ceremony they were taking inspiration from a concept Eric Idle had used in the past for a one-off stage show years ago, and they showed us a video of him on stage with a ballet dancer dressed as as swan and some Roman soldiers.

"I was so focused on doing the dancing and getting it right on the day that I can't really remember much about seeing the athletes. I do remember some people in Irish team kit, though, and at the entrance to the stadium we saw the Kazakh team go past.

"But what I'll take away is the surreal-ness of the whole thing. During the rehearsals, which were out at the old Ford factory in Dagenham, bizarre things kept happening. We'd be waiting for our bit and there would be a skeletal ship coming around the corner and then an exploding octopus. The anticipation was building but we kept being momentarily distracted by all the bizarre stuff.

"I think the reason we were asked was that there were a couple of people within the Olympic organisation who had worked with John Clifford and Kim Woodward on The Great Caper project and Dinosaurs Not Allowed. They'd been teaching morris dancing to kids as part of the cultural Olympiad. So they were contacted by someone and asked to put forward some names of sides to approach.

"I was kind of aware of a few people being upset because it looked as if there would be no morris in the ceremonies and there was a real temptation to say 'Guys, if you wait you might just get what you want'. But with the confidentiality agreement...

"We had to sort out our own accommodation in London. But luckily one of our members, Jenny, her parents live in London - Nodge and Dorothy Norris - and Nodge is involved with Blackheath Morris. So although he wasn't in the opening ceremony himself, they already knew what was happening. They hosted us for the week running up to the ceremony and there was one night when they had 22 extra people in their house! We're very, very grateful to them.

"That was a bit random as well. We had no idea Blackheath were involved until after the audition when we ran into each other outside the building.

"It was a once in a lifetime occurrence. I mean, the likelihood that the Olympics will return to the UK in my lifetime is slim. And then the odds that, even if they did, they'd want morris dancers or me in particular are completely infinitessimal.

"It was," sighed Joss, "a lot of fun and very exciting."

Other morris related posts on this blog include

Weird morris dancing picture from Limehouse

Naturist morris dancers on bicycles?

Way of the Morris: morris on, big time

Earlsdon morris really enjoy wearing their hats

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Weird morris dancing picture from Limehouse

I went down to the London Metropolitan Archive the other day, looking for some information about the unusual alcohol licensing hours in Smithfield, around Barts and the meat market. This is because, as well as writing a blog about folk music, I recently started one for 24hourlondon, an iPhone app that finds late-opening bars, pubs and restaurants in London.

It's early days. But I'm thinking that the 24hourlondon blog will be about London's late-night economy, the running of the app itself including some of its business dilemmas - which is code for Help! - and the occasional political thought. Smithfield struck me as a good place to start because I knew that its licensing laws have always been a bit of an anomaly.

Anyhow, the trip to the archive resulted in a voyage around Smithfield. But while I was down there I also took this picture, which was being flashed up for about 30 seconds at a time on an electronic noticeboard inside the library reading room, rotated with several others.

The longer I stare at it the weirder it seems.

First, I think this is because I'm not used to seeing morris dancing in an urban context, let alone done by women dressed in pinnies.

Second, all three of the girls are staring directly at the camera, as if they've got something urgent to say.

And third, if you look at the top left hand corner of the picture it appears to be in colour - as if reality is trying to break through. I realise this could be an artefact of the printing process, but it still strikes me as odd.

I got in touch with the library at Cecil Sharp House - home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society - to see if they could tell me anything about morris dancing in Limehouse in 1908. They sent me an article about the history of the relationship between Mary Neal and Cecil Sharp (which seems to take forever to load), which includes something about the Esperance Club, which was active at around the time this picture was taken, so that could be a clue.

I've got a couple of leads, though so far the only definite thing is that no one appears to have seen this picture before. If anyone knows who these women might be, I'd love to hear from you.

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Way of the Morris: morris on, big time

The bells, the bells... I was lucky enough to get my hands on a review copy of Way of the Morris, a documentary by actor and film-maker Tim Plester, which has just started doing the rounds at film festivals, and was recently at SXSW in Texas.

And what a treat it is. Unlike the recent Morris: a Life with Bells On, which never felt at ease with its subject (morris off), this is a beautifully crafted story by someone with a link to the morris tradition who doesn't allow it to stand in the way of good film-making.

Strong sense of place: tick. Photography to die for: tick. Good storyline: tick. In fact, it looks as if he may have done something very clever and made a film that will make morris dancing more mainstream just by showing it as it is. He's looking for distribution at the moment.

Plester, you see, is from Adderbury in Oxfordshire and his father is a morris man, although one furloughed by a damaged knee. But Plester junior lives in the city and the documentary is a journey with him through the history of morris dancing in his village without getting too bogged down in its origins. Instead it focuses on the hiatus in the town's morris tradition caused by the Great War, although as someone mutters during the course of the film, there was nothing much that was great about it. It wasn't until the folk rock revival of the early 70s that the troupe was started up again.

I suspect that part of the shimmer of the finished product is a reflection of the personal journey that Plester took over the course of its production. When I originally got a copy through the post there was a problem with the print, prompting an attempt to lay my hands on a better quality disc and a trip to West Finchley, where Plester lives.

"I've joined the Adderbury village morris men," he explained. "I'm dancing the morris now. And people keep asking when I'll be doing it next and whether I'll be filming it. But no. I mean, it's just become part of my life. Making the film was a part of my life too, but it's not my whole life."

There are many moments of intense beauty along the way, starting right at the beginning with a short animation about how the world was danced into existence by a fox, that reminded me of the beginning of Watership Down. This is echoed about halfway through by an exquisite long shot of a fox emerging from the woods and looking around, apparently staring down the camera despite the great distance and then disappearing back into the woods again.

Other things I loved about this movie included the shot of two sloping roofs next to each other while the script briefly mentioned the hypothesis about a connection between the Moors and the origins of morris. The word "pyramids" arrived just at the moment when the viewer realised that the rooves were a perfectly proportioned representation of them.

It also works as a kind of how-to guide for those potentially interested in taking up the morris, since Plester's dad does a satisfyingly practical explanation of why people tie knots in their hankies and most of the basics are covered in a pretty unstructured way. The men of the troupe are disarmingly charming and the hats - ohmygod - are great.

Slow paced but sharply edited, none of the multicultural references - notably to the Haka - seemed forced and there is also a cleverly presented morris dance to gentle techno, which is fun. It gets a bit purple and Shakespearean in places - sceptered isle, blessed Albion, totemic, blah - but never tips over entirely into sentiment.

Way of the Morris is showing next in Arizona, making me wonder whether it will eventually arrive in Britain garlanded with laurels from elsewhere (see below for British showings). It deserves awards and will probably get some. But more importantly I would think it will find itself an audience far beyond morris enthusiasts. And since the English will never be truly at ease with themselves until they're at ease with their traditions, this can only be a good thing.

* Arizona film festival, April 7
* Athens (Ohio) film festival, April 22-28. Exact date to be announced.
* May 2 preview showing at Sensoria in Sheffield.
* Tulepo film festival, Mississippi, May 12-14
* Sunday, May 15. Barbican cinema 1, London, 2pm. Screening with panel discussion afterwards. 
* London International Documentary Film Festival, May 13-28, date of screening to be announced.
* Sidmouth folk festival, July 29- August 5, date to be announced.

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