Making Merrie (A Modern Mummers Play, with Baskets)

A family-friendly performance, with music by The South Wales Improvisors, Making Merrie marks Hen Galan, the Old Welsh New Year.

Making Merrie is a new performance project by artist and basketmaker Lewis Prosser, exploring the material culture of folk theatre. Inspired by mummers' plays and masked traditions along the Wales/England border, Making Merrie combines craft, performance, and language to reflect on cultural heritage and exchange.

Mummers' plays are traditional folk performances with roots over 500 years old, often tied to Christmas and New Year. Full of humour and spontaneous revelry, these plays were staged in streets, homes, or pubs by amateur troupes, telling simple stories of combat, death, and miraculous revival. Unlike the religious Mystery Plays, mummers' plays are secular, carnivalesque, and performed for community fun.

The project features large-scale wicker costumes, handcrafted using regional willow basketry techniques, highlighting basketry as an essential human skill we're at risk of forgetting—a skill that, if lost, means losing part of what it is to be human.

Scripts blend Welsh and English in a garbled nonsense dialect, combined with improvised movement and carnival procession. Unrehearsed and set within communities, the performances invite spontaneity, joy, and humour.Originally from Bristol and now based in Cardiff (via Glasgow), Prosser uses this work to reflect on his journey across the UK, observing how craft and performance connect people with the landscape. Through Making Merrie, he treats linguistic and geographic borders as spaces for dynamic cultural exchange, fostering a deeper sense of identity.

Supported by Arts Council of Wales, Oriel Davies, Chapter Arts Centre, Mission Gallery, and Galeri Caernarfon, Making Merrie will be on display at Galeri Caernarfon from February to April 2025.