To what does the title of Mummer refer?
Here’s an excerpt from an interview published in the June 1984 issue of Musician magazine: “In comes I,” explains Andy Partridge, principal songwriter / singer and outspoken wit of XTC, is a line frequently used in the mummer plays that take place around Christmas time in rural England. The ancient tradition has the players — the townsfolk — dress in suits of rags and tatters [and newspapers] and follow a basic script having to do with cycles of death and rebirth. Just an ordinary folks’ entertainment in the days before telly, which is why traditions like mummers are now rapidly dying out. Disguise is important to the mummers, says Partridge, and recognition would “spoil the magic. If somebody said, ‘Ere!’” (Partridge’s Wiltshire accent, full of “errs” and an unpronounceable way of saying “ou,” broadens, flattens and widens to become a perfect Monty Pythonesque yokel.) “‘You’re Fred the Baker!’ he’s have to go home in tears ’cause he’d been recognized. It’s an ordinary people’s show
