VAUGHAN WILLIAMS STOLE MY FOLK SONG
Sid Kipper - sometime singer, story-teller, author,
musician and always humorist - has completed a mission.
He's got his family's folk song back.
Perhaps you've heard it? It's
the one that goes "Fol-the-rol-me-daddy-oh, whack-fol-riddle-de-ree".
At least it was when they lost it.
By the time they retrieved it all it's identifying marks had been removed and it
had been turned into a rhapsody called 'The Mole Descending'.
Sid's song was collected in the 1900s, when the likes
of Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp and Percy Grainger scoured Britain for interesting
examples. Then, like all
collectors, they classified the songs, swapped them among themselves, until finally
losing interest and putting them in the loft.
In
'Vaughan Williams Stole My Folk Song' Sid offers a show which tells you everything you were
afraid to know about folk singing but always wanted to ask.
Like why do they do it with a finger in the ear?
Is an Aran sweater compulsory? And
what
exactly is the nasal tradition?
The 2008 incarnation of the show brings it all up to date, and includes material about the origins and practice of morris dancing, which Sid claims comes from the Norfolk village of Brampton.
With seldom heard songs such as 'The Oldest Singer In Town' and 'Jack Onion', and traditional instruments like the guitar, accordion and walnut-shells, Sid will have you laughing so much that you might, briefly, forget a very important maxim - there's many a true word spoken in jest!
"Sid Kipper is one of that rare breed of comedians,
in that he's funny in so many different ways"
(Wilts and Glos Standard)