Abinger did its pageant last Saturday extremely, well. Mr. E.
M. Forster, experimenting confidently in a medium new (I believe) to him, worked a thread of continuity with marked success through a series of what might otherwise have been disjointed episodes,, and ,a..perfeet arena with its wooded background and a. natural parterre for the audience would have won applause even for a mediocre programme. Actually there was nothing mediocre about a single scene. Most conspictiously pro- ficient perhaps were the sheep found grazing on the herbage of the natural stage as the pageant opened, driven off to make place for the ancient. Britons, the Romans, Normans and the rest, and brought back to resume their kingdom as the panorama of the centuries ended and the strains of the " Old Hundredth," sung by cottagers and Kate Greenaway children on a Vic- torian village green, were dying away. The fine demo- cracy which associated every class—literally from peer to plumber, and in particular the children of the hall and the children of the cottage—in a performance notable for the ambition of its endeavour and the zest of its achieve- ment, showed a typical English village at its best.
Previous page
