For the uninitiated, the Mummery was a room in the Perse School, Cambridge, where students could stage and perform plays in a realistic enviroment. There was a large stage; a selection of props; a lights alcove; blackout curtains; and, of course, the Tyring House, a Mummery dressing room containing a wide array of skimpy costumes.
But, of course, all this could not last. The Mummery ended when Mr. David Roulinson retired in 1999. Jealous rivals in the Perse English Department "renovated" the mummery, tearing down the blackout curtains, vandalising the Tyring House, turning the Alcove into little more than a book store, burning the skimpy costumes of ages past. Unwittingly, through their jealousy and hatred of the great man, the English Department had sent English teaching at the Perse back 100 years.
The Mummery exists only in memory now, and when we leave the school in three years time it is our fear it will cease to exist even in that. This would be a terrible scenario. We want pupils to know and understand there is an alternative to the rote-learning and grammar they are subjected to now, that once English lessons were a highlight of the week rather than an occasion to be dreaded. We hope to preserve the Mummery ideal in the hearts of the students of the Perse, so that, in future years, wiser generations can return to past glories.
It was with this in mind that the Mummery Restoration Commitee was founded, a coalition of like-minded individuals which meets occasionally to plot the reclamation of our Mummery and the reintroduction of the Play Way. This site is our official homepage; sooner or later we hope to add games, MP3s and Mummery-related downloads, including the Compendium of Mummery Legend and Lore which, at present, is only a work in progress, but for now you will have to be contented with what you've got.
The Mummery revolution is now
