Sword dancers delight crowd with Boxing Day traditional staging of play unique to Hartlepool village

The Greatham Sword dance, which is unique to the village and which is believed to date back to the 1800s, was performed at noon on Monday in front of a large and appreciative crowd.

It has been staged outside the gates to the Hospital of God in the middle of the village for the last 56 years by a team from Redcar Sword Dancers.

The dance includes the acting out of a play telling the story of a clown put to death by sword before being revived by a “quack” doctor.

The Greatham play is thought to date back as far as the first quarter of the 19th Century.

It was most recently revived on Boxing Day in 1967 after an original member of the Cutty Wren Folk Song Club in Redcar found an article on it in a bookshop.

The dance has been performed every year since, except 2020 due to Covid.

This year marked Brian Pearce’s 50th anniversary in the role of ‘King’.

He said: “These sort of dances were normally done in midwinter and Boxing Day was the preferred day for a lot of teams.

"This is because they were mainly done by agricultural workers as a way of getting some money.

"The play is all about death and resurrection and reflects the end of one year and start of another.”

Brian, 75, said of Monday’s reception: “It was the best one for a few years with all the Covid restrictions and everything in the last couple of years.”