Welcome

Welcome everyone to the Belfast Mystery Plays, a contemporary adaptation and interpretation of the traditional Corpus Christi drama of the Middle Ages, to be performed on the streets of the city of Belfast in early 2009. This project is led by the current MA students in Medieval Studies, in the School of English, Queen's University, Belfast. However, we hope this will be a collaborative project and so are currently recruiting volunteers from other courses in the School of English and hope, in time, to engage staff and students from other Schools in the University and members of the wider public.

The Story So Far

For us, the story begins a year ago. In the final year of studying for our undergraduate degrees in English, a number of us undertook a truly fascinating course exploring the drama of the Middle Ages. At the end of this course, some students (including three members of our team) staged their own adaptations of Medieval plays across Belfast. All of us were fascinated by the often overlooked and much maligned drama we encountered, in particular the Mystery Cycles performed in places such as York, Chester, Coventry, London, Cornwall and Dublin. Medieval Belfast never had, as far as can be told, a cycle of its own - although traditional festive drama was widespread across Ireland. Of course, there have been a number of modern adaptations performed in Belfast in recent years; but this drama was, in origin, annual - seasonal - cyclical. Why not do it again?

The summer after we graduated, two members of our team, Eamon and Chris, began to discuss the idea of using our fast-approaching time as MA students to stage a short cycle of Mystery Plays. Slowly, ideas began to take shape and after only a matter of weeks of our studies, all seven students enrolled in the Medieval MA had signed up. Since then we have discussed the plans with a number of our fellow students and members of staff and have been delighted with their encouragement and enthusiasm. And now, as Christmas approaches, the scripts are being written, the musical accompaniments being developed and, with the arrival of this blog, the project is firmly afloat.

The Story To Come

It is hoped that as the project develops, this blog can be used to keep all who are interested up to date. There will be a weekly roundup of developments and, fingers crossed, comments and discussion throughout the week. In the New Year we hope to begin to post photographs, script extracts, lyrics and, if our technological capabilities permit, some audio and video elements.

In the meantime, may we invite you to email us with any queries and comments (you can reach us at belfastmysteryplays@gmail.com) and, of course, wish you all a Very Merry Christmas.

Eamon, Chris, Linda, Gerard, Will, Lauren and Lorraine