00:00 My name is David Burnham and I run and organise the Exeter Paysage. I think this is the 45th
00:11 year since I revived it. It was a play I did as a child at the village school but it died
00:17 out. In '79 the school had a centenary year and asked me if I would get some old boys
00:24 together and do a paysage. So we did it as a one-off and then we said we should keep
00:28 it going, it's village tradition. So here we are 45 years later still doing the Paysage
00:35 play. Paysage, there are many theories on it, from Pache for French for Easter possibly,
00:45 but Paysage varies. In Preston in Lancashire they roll decorated eggs down a hill and raise
00:53 them. They also do that on Easter Monday in Middleton in Manchester but they do the play
00:57 as well. They play slightly different characters. These plays were passed down by word of mouth
01:04 so they're all going to vary a bit. When I revived it I would ask old men who'd done
01:09 it when they were boys because up until between the wars boys just went round farms and streets
01:15 doing it for pennies and eggs to raise some money to take them to Tom Odin Fair. Because
01:22 it's like Chinese whispers, it's been passed down orally, it will change. So there are
01:28 many different versions. But basically you could say, nobody has any proof, but the theory
01:36 is it's an earlier pagan rebirth ceremony. I as a doctor would have possibly, I might
01:44 be dressed as a Victorian quack but may have originally been like a medicine man. Characters
01:52 like St George obviously came in later because when the church tried to make pagan things
01:56 more acceptable they put on the Crusades. So that sort of religion not being able to
02:04 get rid of things but adapting them for its purposes. It has become very, very popular,
02:12 we can't explain why but people come. Maybe because we stay in the same place where others,
02:23 the Midgley payseggers who are out now, they'll be doing Mythomroy, Londonfoot, Tom Odin etc
02:30 are out there touring around the valley. They will be here at three o'clock hopefully to
02:34 give their version which is very similar but slightly different. We do make a collection
02:39 for charity, that's a spin off really, but that's just to keep an old village tradition
02:45 going. And it's become for a lot of people a coming together because people know that
02:50 if they come back to Hectorstall, especially people from the village who have gone off
02:54 to uni and gone off around the world with their careers, they come back on Good Friday,
02:58 they meet old friends. So for some it's become that. We have Tosspot who is our fertility
03:04 symbol for Easter. One year all the ladies he gave eggs to all had child within the next
03:11 year so he's become, those will be in the teens by now with those kids, so who knows,
03:20 some may come for a kiss and an egg from Tosspot.
03:26 I'll pierce thee body full of oils and make thee bums fly.
03:32 Those are yer last year. Pull out thy purse and pay, draw out thy sword and slay, for
03:47 I shall have a recompense before I go away. Ah ha, world war.
03:53 He's embarrassed.
04:11 Right, I'm dead now.
04:21 (audience laughing)
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