The Outside Capering Crew Call the Caperers

Martin Banks profiled The Outside Capering Crew in an article for the national folk music magazine FRoots in 1999. Although the team has evolved since this piece was written, our philosophy remains much the same.

One of the hardest worked dance teams at Sidmouth 99 was surprisingly local for an international event. The Outside Capering Crew may be in their hearts a Cotswold morris side, but they are also firmly entrenched in the school of street performance, and it was this combination which kept them winning over audiences at the festival.

To the outsider The Crew's aim seems simple: they set out to put the performance, the entertainment, back in so that it is accessible.

For years, morris has suffered from being seen as either an esoteric folk art or a justification for dancers to go out drinking one night a week. This has hardly been the stuff of which an enraptured audience is made.

"Some of the traditional teams were the entertainers of their day and they had variety, and they used the best tunes," said Simon Pipe, who formed The Crew with Brian Mander.

"They did it for money, so they put on a show, and that has now gone. There are some great teams that do put on a show, but a lot aren't thinking of all the possibilities."

The Crew started in 1997. The year before, Simon (Adderbury Morris) and Brian (Redbornstoke Morris and Downes On Tour) had danced a one-off double-jig in the Frost and Fire show at Sidmouth, and were promptly asked to come back the next year, with a repertoire. So they did.

Since then, they have been joined by Sue Graham and Tracy Seelig, both of Windsor Morris. Simon, Sure and Tracy are all past winners of the John Gasson solo jig competition at Sidmouth, and Simon won it again this year with one of The Crew's musicians, Barry Goodman.

It is their continued adherence to variations on the jig format that marks out The Crew's style. There is much more scope and freedom of action in jigs than in normal set dances, and The Crew exploits this to the full.

So solo jigs are rare, except when Simon is performing attention-getters such as the Wobbly Hat Dance or the Pint Pot Jig. More likely are two-up dances such as their versions of the Broom Dance or Fool's Jig.

High spot for dance aficionados is the fast, furious and very 'showy' Four Up bacca pipes jig.

The Crew is always pushing skills to the limit, and audiences respond to that. They also respond to banter and mistakes and in The Crew's case, the latter is usually the cause of the former.

"Audiences like mistakes," Simon said, self-effacingly, "and they like us - we make a lot of mistakes.

"I have danced in a lot of sets, and many morris teams are desperately boring. The dancers may be good, but the audience awareness is lacking. It can be pretty, but dull."

Brian extended this thought further. "You get teams where there is lots of noise and bashing about, but no technical ability whatsoever. Funnily enough, audiences tend to like them. We're trying to get both with The Crew."

Inherently identifying one of the factors that can sometimes make morris the butt of pub jokers, Tracy pointed to a difference The Crew has over other sides. "I find it much more of a challenge dancing with the Capering Crew. It's pushing me to the limit."

"I cringe when I'm in a set and I can see we're doing nothing to please the audience," Simon added. "For me, morris is a street art form, so I would like to see it take its place alongside juggling and all those other things, which I can also do, having been to circus school.

"This is just as skilled, and can be just as entertaining, and we are working hard to find out how to make it entertaining.

"After all, juggling can be boring.

"But musicians practise every day, and they work together on fancy arrangements. They do it to make it as good as it can be. For some reason dancers don't do that.

"Why aren't dancers taking the same approach as musicians? They show us how it can be done."

There are four musicians in The Crew - Lawrence Wright, Barry Goodman, Mark Rogers and John Leslie - all experienced at playing for dancers and all prone to joining in the sillier moments.

This breaks with the tradition of a single musician for Cotswold morris, but fits with The Crew's 'edgy' nature.

As Barry Goodman put it, "It's a challenge getting the music together for this lot. They have four different styles of dancing and there is a lot of improvisation.

"It's a bit like playing in a good session. Anything can happen."