Ten years since these modern mystery plays were first performed, John Constable’s raucous mystical caravan will be returning to Southwark Cathedral this April. Website sez:
Inspired by the medieval mystery plays, this modern drama is rooted in the history of Bankside – London’s “outlaw borough” – mixing Bible stories with local folklore and contemporary humour.
Crossbones Graveyard Gates
It’s not Shakespeare (although he is in it, and Chaucer too – both had strong ties to the area) but it should be an entertaining performance.
The play stitches together symbols from across the centuries, from high art and street scurf, and it’s full of church spires and rags, goddesses, whores, history and magic.
It was inspired by the discovery of the Crossbones Graveyard in Borough. The play was written partly to restore a voice and a memory to the 15,000 nameless people buried there outside consecrated ground – prostitutes and criminals, the sick and the mad.
The whole project is an amazing example of modern myth-making, of a community of misfits and an urban space reclaimed for the non-specific spiritual. One day I’m going to tie a ribbon to the gate and commemorate one of the thousands of born-forgotten women who are buried there.
