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Sherborne Pageant

The modern pageant boom starts here, as a Dorset market town celebrates its rich history.

Documentary 1905 18 mins Silent

Overview

The pageant mounted in June 1905 by the people of Sherborne, Dorset, deserves its own place in history. This ambitious spectacle, with a cast of over 800 enacting scenes from the town's 1200-year history beside the ruins of Sherborne Castle, kicked off a craze in pageants that swept Britain. "It is difficult," said The Times, "to convey a just idea of the beauty and interest of the pageant without falling into extravagant diction." These precious images give us a taste, at least.

The pageant was the brainchild of playwright Louis Napoleon Parker, who would later repeat the formula in several other locations. The 11-act drama starts with the foundation of the town by the bishop St. Aldhelm in 1705, and highlights the perhaps surprisingly illustrious past - Sherborne was once the capital of the old kingdom of Wessex, and Elizabethan adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh (seen smoking a pipe at around the 15-minutes mark) made it his home. The absence of intertitles leaves a lot unexplained, but there's no mistaking the genuinely epic scale of the endeavour.

Genres

Documentary

Country

United Kingdom

Location

Sherborne

Language

No Dialogue with English subtitles

Subjects

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