Furness Pasche Egg Play

Where: Locations around Cumbria (2022 started at Baycliffe, with Ulverston at the Coronation Hall at noon and other locations, ending at Broughton Square)
When: Easter Monday
Time: From 10 am through to approx 4pm

 

Pace or Pasche Egging Plays are traditional mumming plays with their own unique character and are performed during Eastertide, mainly in the north-western corner of England. They are typically hero-combat plays with fight scenes and the revival of one protagonist by a doctor but also have some unique songs and characters like Tosspot who don’t appear anywhere else. The name comes from the players or their attendants in past years begging for eggs for the Easter season, and the spelling can vary quite widely! Cumbria’s longest-standing Morris dancers, Furness Morris, perform a traditional play based upon those performed locally in the past in a tour of the South Cumbria district, which take place at several locations every Easter Monday, followed by performances of stick and sword dances. As well as St George, the cast includes Lord Nelson, Tosspot and of course the quack Doctor.

Helpful Hints

It’s always on Easter Monday, which will be Monday April 21st in 2025. Performances last around 15 minutes.

And unlike many dance sides, when we went to see them in 2022 they were running to British Summer Time not Morris Time and were actually in Ulverston a few minutes ahead of the schedule!

Here’s the schedule for reference (but double check with their own links below in case of any last-minute changes):

10:00am Baycliff 11:00am Dalton Castle 12 Noon Coronation Hall 2:30pm Great Urswick 3:30pm Broughton Square

Click here for Furness Morris’ Facebook page with full list of times and locations: https://www.facebook.com/FurnessMorris

and here for their website: https://www.furnessmorris.org.uk

View this location on the map