Tatsfield Church Pageant

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Hermitage Grounds (Tatsfield) (Tatsfield, Surrey, England)

Year: 1938

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 2

Notes

30 July 1938, at 3pm and 7pm.

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Producers: Mrs Quirke, Mrs Lawrence, Mrs O’Reilly, and the Rector 

Names of executive committee or equivalent

n/a

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

Names of composers

n/a

Numbers of performers

60

Financial information

n/a

Object of any funds raised

Any surplus funds went towards the Church funds.

Linked occasion

n/a

Audience information

  • Grandstand: No
  • Grandstand capacity: n/a
  • Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

12d-6d.

Associated events

‘Prior to the performance the players assembled outside the Parish Hall and headed by the West Croydon Salvation Army band, marched in procession to the Hermitage.’ (Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser, 5 August 1938, 5).

Pageant outline

Prologue: Annunciation of the Shepherds

1. Julius Caesar’s Tent

2. Martyrdom of St. Alban

3. St. Patrick at Tara

4. Gregory in the Slave Market

5. Gregory commissions Augustine

6. Augustine’s arrival at Ebbsfleet

7. Aidan sent from Iona

8. Aidan’s arrival in England

9. Call of Cuthbert

10. Arrival of Cuthbert

11. Death of Venerable Bede

12. Murder of Thomas a Becket

13. Signing of Magna Carta

Finale

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 BC) politician, author, and military commander
  • Alban [St Alban, Albanus] (d. c.303?) Christian martyr in Roman Britain
  • Patrick [St Patrick, Pádraig] (fl. 5th cent.) patron saint of Ireland
  • Augustine [St Augustine] (d. 604) missionary and archbishop of Canterbury
  • Áedán [St Áedán, Aidan] (d. 651) missionary and bishop
  • Cuthbert [St Cuthbert] (c.635–687) bishop of Lindisfarne
  • Bede [St Bede, Bæda, known as the Venerable Bede] (673/4–735) monk, historian, and theologian
  • Becket, Thomas [St Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London] (1120?–1170) archbishop of Canterbury
  • John (1167–1216) king of England, and lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou

Musical production

n/a

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser

Book of words

None noted

Other primary published materials

  • Tatsfield Church Pageant. Westerham, 1938. [price 2d].

References in secondary literature

n/a

Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • Copy of programme in Surrey History Centre, Woking, reference 791.6p.

Sources used in preparation of pageant

n/a

Summary

This was a very small church pageant. Its main claim to fame was that its cast included two members of the great Liberal dynasty, the Bonham-Carters: Margaret and Rosemary. Small though it was, however, the Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser saw the pageant as a morality tale for the present world crisis:

Some of the saddest chapters in human history were vividly portrayed by Tatsfield villagers on Saturday, when with the assistance of a few outside friends, they presented an original Church pageant in a series of tableaux… The scenes, covering the period from the time of Julius Caesar (B.C. 55) to the signing of the Magna Carta by King John served to emphasise the debt which modern civilisation owes to the great missionaries of the past for bringing the Gospel to this country. The audience was made to see that persecution only made these men who were seeking truth more resolute, and that they were prepared to die gladly for the faith that was dear to them rather than submit to the official religion of pagan Rome.1

The reporter held out particular praise for the Thomas Beckett scene, where ‘we were shown the wonderful courage of the man who, determined to oppose encroachment on the religious life and liberty of the people, brought down upon his head the wrath of the King.’2 This was the penultimate scene of the pageant, which ended on an upbeat note with the signing [sic] of Magna Carta.


Footnotes

1. ^ Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser, 5 August 1938, 5.
2. ^ Ibid.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Tatsfield Church Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1462/