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Mystery Plays at Leeds

In 1974, a group of medieval drama enthusiasts from the GCMS, headed by Lynn Muir and Jane Oakshott, proposed to stage a set of medieval mystery plays. These are late medieval biblical dramas collected together into ‘cycles’ performed on stages built on top of wagons, which moved between performances as a procession.

Daphne Franks, Doreen Jobbins, Stephen Franks, Charles Oldroyd, and Ron Blass of the Swarthmore Centre performing The Three Kings, 1983.

Daphne Franks, Doreen Jobbins, Stephen Franks, Charles Oldroyd, and Ron Blass of the Swarthmore Centre performing The Three Kings, 1983.

As it would have been in medieval times, the York Cycle was staged by 42 companies from many backgrounds, including drama groups, Yorkshire colleges, and dozens of University of Leeds departments.

I can remember Jane Oakshott standing over by the window saying, 'Why don't we do it? Why don't we put it on? Let's do it!' and she became very excited, and we thought, 'I don't know? Can we cope?'

Peter Meredith
Emeritus Professor of Medieval Drama

The production involved wagons borrowed from a local farm with different superstructures for each play.

To enhance the feeling of a real medieval mystery cycle, a market was organised around the University campus.

Paul Valois, Colin Lunt, and Adrian Smith of the Brotherton Players, performing Noah and the Flood, 1983.

Paul Valois, Colin Lunt, and Adrian Smith of the Brotherton Players, performing Noah and the Flood, 1983.

The York Cycle was a great success and inspired many other productions. These include a staging of the Wakefield Cycle in Wakefield town centre in 1980 and the Chester Cycle at the University of Leeds in 1983.

In 1994, the York Cycle was performed from wagons in York city centre for the first time since the sixteenth century.

Hilda Purvis was the literary executor of her brother Canon John Stanley Purvis (d. 1968) who edited and translated the York Mystery Cycle. The royalties for this edition continue to contribute to School of English postgraduate funding.

Community

The Medieval Group and the early academics of the GCMS included enthusiasts for medieval drama from many different disciplines including English, History, Music, French, and Italian. This group met habitually for lunch and conversation on Wednesdays in Lynn Muir’s office. This ‘Wednesday Lunchtime Group’ provided the venue for the genesis of the 1975 Mystery Cycle.

I was conscious of a sense of the medieval mind in the acting and this was enhanced by the feeling that one was really back in the centuries that went before this reconstruction.

Hilda Purvis
May 1975