The Grasmere Dialect Plays

I was very excited to discover that there was to be a revival of the Grasmere Dialect Plays, performed in Grasmere Village Hall which was built for this purpose almost 100 years ago.

A couple of years ago Sue Wilkinson, the person behind the revival, spoke at a Cultural Landscapes event, and I was fascinated. My interest was manifold. Firstly, I am always fascinated by dialect and especially dialect in literature; secondly, and possibly most importantly, the plays were written and produced by Eleanor Simpson, who married Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley; thirdly, Grasmere Village Hall was built by the Rawnsleys, specifically for the staging of the plays.

The plays were performed for forty years until 1937 and were a huge tourist attraction. Always staged in January, they were an important part of village life.  Canon Rawnsley writes about the Plays in Months at the Lakes.

"...the Grasmere people are blessed with two stages. Not only are they actors in the common drama of everyday life, but each year as January comes around they are determined to show on the boards and before the footlights of the village hall how for a season they can live in a world of imagination, and how on their village stage they can touch the hearts and open the eyes of the beholders to perceive something of the pathos and humour and tragedy of life that fell-side people in their quiet farms and dale cottages experience". 

A fabulous evening's entertainment with music, singing, drama, storytelling and lots of fun! We thorougly enjoyed ourselves.