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Pulham Market Carnival 1976 - Shows of Screen and Stage

Rather impressively, Pulham Market Carnival-goers dress up for the year’s theme, ‘Shows of Screen or Stage’. Can you guess who’s who?

Amateur film 1976 16 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for East Anglian Film Archive

Overview

A popular event in the Pulham Market calendar, the villagers in south Norfolk hold their annual carnival and fair. In 1976, the year’s theme of “Shows of Screen & Stage” inspires many to don a costume including, Pulham Market Schoolchildren as ‘The King and I’, The Young Falconers Club as ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’, and the school’s dinnerladies dress up as ‘Paint Your Wagon’.

On the village green, villagers enjoy a barbeque, stalls, and games including ‘horse shoe pitching’ and a rough and tumble basketball match – or, is it netball? Breaking the rules is all the fun! This footage does feature instances of fancy dress participants blacking-up. Such racially insensitive representations would not be acceptable today, however one must presume at the time it was merely a misjudged pun on the carnival’s theme of ‘screen & stage’.