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Sherborne Pageant
The modern pageant boom starts here, as a Dorset market town celebrates its rich history.
Overview
The pageant mounted in June 1905 by the people of Sherborne, Dorset, deserves its own place in history. This ambitious spectacle, with a cast of over 800 enacting scenes from the town's 1200-year history beside the ruins of Sherborne Castle, kicked off a craze in pageants that swept Britain. "It is difficult," said The Times, "to convey a just idea of the beauty and interest of the pageant without falling into extravagant diction." These precious images give us a taste, at least.
The pageant was the brainchild of playwright Louis Napoleon Parker, who would later repeat the formula in several other locations. The 11-act drama starts with the foundation of the town by the bishop St. Aldhelm in 1705, and highlights the perhaps surprisingly illustrious past - Sherborne was once the capital of the old kingdom of Wessex, and Elizabethan adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh (seen smoking a pipe at around the 15-minutes mark) made it his home. The absence of intertitles leaves a lot unexplained, but there's no mistaking the genuinely epic scale of the endeavour.
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