2021 Museum Grounds Performance
Generally fine day, mainly sunny.
Single venue – North Lincolnshire Museum, Oswald Road, Scunthorpe. Performance arranged by North Lincolnshire Museum and Folklincs
£90 Collected for British Heart Foundation (£50 of which was donated by the Museum as expenses for the Plough Jag )
11.00 to 12.15. Plough Jag performance in the 'performance tent' in the museum grounds.
Characters
Rag Fool Eamon Greene (s)
Recruiting Sergeant Geoff Convery (s)
The Lady Gordon Griffin
The Horse Mary-Anne Hindley
Joe Straw Steve Hindley (s)
Green Flash Hatman Dick Skinner (m)
Beelzebub Fran Ross
The Doctor Geoff Miller (s)
Dame Jane Gordon Griffin
Besom Betty Chris Marshall
Hatman Dot Griffin (s)
Having had to cancel the traditional January performances due to risks associated with the Covid 19, coronovirus pandemic, it was fortunate that Carol Dawson and Folklincs invited Coleby Ploughjag to perform on the folk weekend arranged with the North Lincolnshire Museum on 29th August 2021.
We were allocated a small office within the museum, as a dressing room. The question of make-up and tradition versus contemporary political correctness was again raised. After a quick discussion, it was decided that we would not wear makeup at all for this performance.
Thus another Plough Jag tradition was broken, as we had already incorporated a female into the cast in 2020 and on this day we were incorporating two, Fran Ross as Beelzebub and Mary-Anne Hindley as the Hoss.
With no rehearsal, and only 5 sword dancers, we trouped off to the performance tent and launched into the Jag.
All was going well, until The Recruiting Sergeant struggled to get the coin out of his pocket to offer to Joe Straw. Hopefully no-one in the audience misinterpreted the struggle, but it caused hilarity within the Jaggers, and the audience.
We managed the sword dance with just five, although Rag Fool fell over at one point, which elicited more hilarity, as did the attempted quick change from the Lady to Dame Jane by Gordon, who had graciously agreed to play both parts.
Beelzebub took her role rather too seriously and would not stop attacking Dame Jane, causing her some consternation, but all worked out in the end.
Besom Betty was right up to date as a cleaner wearing contemporary Personal Protective Equipment in keeping with the current pandemic.
We sang Jag Day and were joined by it’s author, Jim Hancock.
After the performance we asked for any questions from the audience and, amongst other things, were asked who had made the blue smock that Joe Straw was wearing. As chance would have it, seamstress Roberta Fulford, was in the audience and we were able to give to her the acknowledgement that was deserved.
One lady said, 'I came in late and missed the Jag - would you do it again?'
So we did!
Everything went smoother the second time and it nicely filled up our allotted time of 75 minutes.
