Pageants 24
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The Dover Pageant
Dover’s staging of a historical folk-play in 1908 was a nationally important and spectacular example of an Edwardian town gripped by ‘pageantitis’. Directed by the original master himself, Louis Na... -
The Chipping Sodbury Pageant
The Chipping Sodbury Pageant was a small pageant staged four times in south Gloucestershire in summer 1935. It was produced and mostly written by Cicely Bedford, who had been producing plays since ... -
Silver Jubilee Pageant
There was a revival of historical pageantry in 1977 on the occasion of the queen’s silver jubilee, and David Clarke’s pageant in Guildford was one of the most notable examples. Clarke had worked wi... -
Sutton Coldfield Pageant
The small town of Sutton Coldfield was fiercely proud of its history, as only a town on the outskirts of Birmingham could be. The Sutton Coldfield Pageant of 1928 commemorated the granting of the t... -
Naworth Castle Pageant
The Naworth Castle Pageant was a small event that took place in 1960. It was really more of a fete and short play than a ‘true’ historical pageant. The focus was solely on the Tudor period and Henr... -
The Grand Historical Pageant of Gloucester
The Grand Historical Pageant of Gloucester took place in the summer of 1930 and was the top billed event of a fundraiser for the Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary—which was trying to raise £20000 for... -
Oxford Historical Pageant
The Oxford Historical Pageant of 1907 was a major civic event, and took place in the grounds of Magdalen College. Despite being wholly a part of the initial outburst of pageant fever, it was one of... -
Pageant of Farnham
The Pageant of Farnham was the first of many pageants devised by Neville Lovett (the future Bishop of Salisbury and Portsmouth). It was held to repay some of the debts on the Church House (now Vine... -
St Albans Pageant 1953: A Masque of the Queens
Having staged a pageant during the height of Edwardian ‘pageant fever’ in 1907, as well as one of the early post-war pageants in 1948, St Albans did it for the third time during the Coronation cele... -
The Wolsey Pageant
The Wolsey Pageant was a mid-to-large scale event staged in Ipswich to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the town’s most famous son: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. The pageant was directed and partly-w... -
Dartford Division of Kent Historical Pageant
The Dartford Historical Pageant was one of the final civic extravaganzas produced by the famous pageant master Frank Lascelles. In his typical fashion,1 the pageant was a large and spectacular affa... -
Pageant of a Thousand Years of the Church of Barton, 669 to 1672
A number of churches and cathedrals held pageants in celebration of key events in their history, including the Clifton Parish Church Centenary, Somerset (1922), Adel Church Octocentenary, West York... -
Benfleet Pageant
This was the first of three pageants held in the small town of Benfleet, Essex, after the Second World War (the others took place in 1953 and 1994). Staged in 1946, the midst of post-war austerity,... -
The Pageant of Guildford 1957
The Pageant of Guildford was a relatively large event staged to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the granting of the town’s first charter. It was produced by Christopher Ede—by this point the m... -
Pageant of Runnymede
In 1921 there had been outcry when the government attempted to sell Runnymeade Meadow for development, the proposal only being averted when the civil engineer Urban Broughton bought the land. His w... -
Time and the City: A Pageant Play
St Albans had staged three historical pageants, in 1907, 1948 and 1953. In 1968 an indoor ‘pageant play’ was staged, with three performances on the stage of the recently built City Hall, which coul... -
Dover Castle Pageant
Dover had had a large pageant in 1908, organised by Louis Napoleon Parker. The town revived the tradition in 1983 after Michael McFarnell, a local hotelier, was given a copy of the original book of... -
Southend and Westcliff-on-Sea Pageant
Preparations for the Southend and Westcliff-on-Sea pageant began with a crowded meeting at King’s Hall on Friday 14 March 1909, where the main features of the show were outlined and explained. The ... -
Hitchin Pageant
The 1951 Festival of Britain saw something of a revival of historical pageantry in a world in which it appeared increasingly outmoded when competing with cinema, theatre and—most of all—television.... -
Deal Bi-millenary Pageant
Deal’s Bi-millenary Pageant, which began counting with the first Roman invasion of 55BC was held by kind permission of the Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports, the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchil...