The second programme featured the Unthank sisters. I don't know if you know then but they're a couple of sisters from Northumberland who sing folk songs and incorporate clog dancing into their live shows. I've always found their music a little dreary and Rachel Unthank has a tendency to have a fasce like a slapped arse most of the time. they certainly livened up on Still Country Dancing After All These Years. Yes, that's right country dancing. I'm talking morris dancing here. I know that morris dancing sends a shiver up my spine, let alone yours. BUT it is a great English tradition, isn't it? We know all about the Irish and Scottish traditional music and dance, but being English you're supposed to be embarrassed by anything traditional. Why is that? Unfortunately for me I'm as English as they come, yes it would be nice to have a bit of Scots fire or Irish heart in my blood but I'm about as Anglo-Saxon as you can get (fair hair, blue eyes both parents families from the east of England. I've even got the most Anglo-Saxon name imaginable).
So this programme went around different parts of England over the summer months discovering old Englaish dance traditions. Yes, I know Cotswold morris can be tiresome (think flowers around hats, bells around ankles, hankies and a pewter tankard attached to the belt), but some of the real Pagan stuff is terrific, I think. For example, who wouldn't want to go to Padstow during the Obby Oss festival in early May? I know I'd love to go. For those unfamilliar with the Obby Oss, a man dresses as a 'horse' and entices local maidens under the horse's skirt where they become fertile. I reckon that's great. I love the way these traditions are usually about fertility; it always makes me laugh that the Maypole that primary school children dance around is a representation of the penis. Not only that, but seeing someone getting twatted over the head with an inflated pig's bladder is always funny.
Anyway, with all that fertility and Rachel Unthank lightening up rather a lot I started having improper thoughts about two Northumbrian singing sisters myself.
Here's a song about reviving English tradition (although I do find Show of Hands a little worthy sometimes), unfortunately it's come onto the BNP fuckwit radar just recently. Looks like we'll have to claim it back. Why do they spoil everything?
What I don't recommend you watch is something else that was on BBC4 over theweekend called Folk at Christmas. It was rotten. It was like a folk The Good Old Days with those tiresome fuckers Bellowhead. The audience were dressed like pricks, the Unthanks were back in misery mode and the compere thought he was funny. Avoid.
6 comments:
We saw the Unthanks at the Moseley folk fest - and a right bloody misery they were. They could have done with a pig's bladder up the kilt.
I caught the last half hour or so of The Unthanks and enjoyed it greatly. Maybe it was because I was taken by a: the way they say years (yeahs) and b: their fulsome breasts.
I saw them at Leicester Summer Sundae a few years ago and they really did seem like very serious young women. The responsibility of carrying a cultural regional tradition obviously weighs heavily, though it may just be their fulsome breasts that do that.
Yes, they're both 'all woman'. Pity they normally have faces like vinegar.
Ah, yes, the Unthanks at MoFo "Are they finished yet?????" .....zzzzzzzzz
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