The Outside Capering Crew Our Shows

The Crew is a highly inventive team with a vigorous, enthusiastic style of performance, partly inspired by modern street entertainers. On stage or street, our aim is to entertain.

We can offer two structured street shows, a tight spot suitable for ceilidhs and barn dances, and an entertaining and varied hour-long show, The Big Caper, which we have created with Berkshire Bedlam Morris. We also do wandering performances and processions. We are also happy to dance turn-and-turn about with other teams at festivals.

Our shows are designed to be enjoyed by all ages - and especially people who think they don't like morris dancing.

We often ask members to play in our unique orchestra of musical rubber chickens (and usually regret it).

Each street show lasts about half an hour and includes two of our exciting bacca-pipes dances, two Cotswold jigs, a comic item, an audience-participation piece, a broom dance and one other speciality dance. We finish with one of the dancers leapfrogging the rest of the team in a single leap.

Our ceilidh spots generally last 13-15 minutes and feature six varied dances performed in rapid sequence, with an optional audience-participation dance to finish.

The Big Caper was premiered in 2006 in Belgium and has since been developed as a one-hour family entertainment for major UK festivals, and also adapted for shorter performances. It features the best of our street shows, as well as a dance on horseback (UK only - and we should point out that we use two-legged horses). Berkshire Bedlam performs showpiece material including a coconut-clashing dance, stick throwing, and a theatrical sword-fighting dance. Both teams interact throughout the show, with specially-devised dances and comic business, and the show finishes with a spectacular leapfrog finale. There is plenty of audience interaction. Read more here.

We can also create one-off shows for special occasions. After a last-minute request to dance at an open-air church service in Wimborne, we got most of the congregation joining a hand-clapping dance in their seats.