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I think the Shattock Schoole of Defence gets credit for making me use the phrase "Swishy Poke" but beyond that I can't tell you where it originated...  |
SWISHY POKE NOTE: There are about thirty or so performers (collectively) in the groups this article discusses. I won't even begin to mention them all. Those that I left out will just have to deal with it. It doesn't mean I love you any less... ;-) Everybody loves a festival! For some the draw is the shopping. For others it's the belly dancers. For some others it's the music. Regardless of the appeal, no festival is complete without some form of sword play or combat. In the past month we have been fortunate to catch three very different sword performance troupes: The Shattock Schoole of Defence, Renaissance Sword Theatre, and MacFarlane Live Steel. This article will present a quick overview of each group and discuss merits of the various approaches to swishing and poking that each takes. Style. Grace. And Comedy.
The stories unfold with bits of dialog and, inevitably, all hell breaks loose as sword duels ensue. Shattock specializes in rapier blades which are the thin light kind that the Three Musketeers carried. Three different shows are currently in rotation: Battle of the Sexes — What if Robespierre wrote the Shattock stories? The women rush in to cover him with kisses, of course! But he doesn't, and a more realistic turn of events has the same women suddenly pummeling him into the ground. The battle has begun. The men of the group face off against the women as each takes turns showing who is master of the blade. Don Antonio — Group leader Jaspar recreates his dramatic
victory over now-dead bad guy Don Antonio by having a lucky Grim Reunion — Three princesses begin to tell how things
have been going in their lives since they graduated from, apparently,
the Grim's Fairy Tales University. Sleeping Beauty talks of her amazing
Prince Charming (played by Robespierre in what is arguably one of the
funniest roles you will ever see at a renaissance festival) while Mercurio
plods along as Cedric, the humble and overworked assistant to the prince.
Slay the dragon? Charming makes good use of his hired help. Climb that
tall wall? Go to it, Cedric. The low key "I hate my life" attitude
of Mercurio is one of my favorite things out of any Shattock performance.
"I am an asset to the company. I am a valued employee" he mumbles
to himself before taking on some unrealistic task assigned to him by the
very charming, very flirtatious, and very lazy prince. Snow White is even
around talking about her room mates, the dwarves. (Gregor and Argyle pop
in to play the part of As you can see, Shattock relies on storyline and humor much more than actual "oh my, someone could lose an arm!" combat. When they have action sequences, they are action sequences. While no one has ever lost an eye, there have been real injuries and real blood badges given out to cast members who have suffered unfortunate timing mistakes. The group is very professional and knows how to work the crowd as good as anyone, and far better than most. Best of all, their show is fun for the whole family and even those who avoid any type of violence should find Shattock safe and agreeable entertainment. They look so... real!
After the introductions, each fighter is introduced as they take the field to go up against another performer. The fights are not scripted or planned in any way. This is live (and fast) steel against steel and you can tell. Clang, clang, tink, clang. The tournament is played to the touch, meaning any contact that would have resulted in an injury counts as a point. Three points wins, and often each round goes 2-2 almost as if it were planned. A leaderboard is silently kept as fighters work their way up the charts until one final victor is declared. If you've seen the movie A Knight's Tale you can picture this similar to the tournaments represented in the film. Renaissance Sword Theatre gets special points for their historical angle. The performers are very authentic even down to the costumes they wear. Katie MacMillian (played by the lovely, but engaged, Jessica) creates much of the garb for the group. She would best be described as a costume nazi for her insistence on authenticity. Their full line up consists of about a dozen performers and every one of them is fast enough with a sword that you wouldn't dare challenge them to a duel in the streets. If you want raw excitement and love to hear the clashing sound of metal against metal, this is the act to find. It's a story. It's a battle. It's both!
The next performance has a bit more action. A volunteer is used to demonstrate hand kissing which seems to inevitably leave the women in the audience touched. After the touching there is far more clanging and the audience senses things are getting a bit more serious. Finally, the day concludes. While many of the combat moves are very routine, we did find ourselves quite surprised by some of the near-acrobatic flips and throws we witnessed! There are some very hard slams into the ground (which just look like they have to hurt in spite of how well planned) and one rather interesting move which has the bad guy literally being flipped head over heal. Amazing stuff—we have previously only seen this kind of stuff done by the Jousting Knights and Steeds (Hanlon-Lees Action Theater). Well done! This one performance makes up for some of the less spectacular routine clanging earlier in the day. The storyline ends, of course, with a surprise twist and the conclusion has a restatement of the underlying messages: Never judge a book by its cover, and respect those around you. Well done indeed. A special bonus point goes for the good guy stopping some children from horseplaying with wooden swords: "Never draw your sword unless you really plan to use it." And the winner is... Each group is very different from the other so none can be considered the best. Shattock has the humor while R.S.T. has the noise and excitement. MacFarlane offers a dramatic storyline and a message. Overall, it would be a near perfect festival if you could have all three acts performing throughout the day. (Throw in the Hanlon-Lees and you could practically have an event solely based on Renaissance Combat!) Today we consider Shattock to be friends of AtTheFaire, and thanks to the work of Frank and Jessica at R.S.T. I believe we can almost consider their group the same. As for MacFarlane, we'll have to see what they think of us after we show them the pictures and video we took. You know how stars can be if you don't catch their good side... Summary Every festival needs swordplay. Every festival needs drama. History can be entertaining. While it would probably be very difficult to pack all of these items into one group, we find that three groups do the job quite nicely. For contact information, visit their official web sites or look for their entry in our Faire Folke entertainer section. (MacFarlane will be added to that index very soon...)
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Shattok,
a division of Tipsword Theatrical Fencing, is a large group of both men
and women who perform what I would call comedy fencing. Their performances
are more like plays with duels thrown in for dramatic effect. Their cast
of characters includes some very memorable ones such as Robespierre,
the loudmouthed Frenchman that every woman loves (or at least he thinks
they should), as well as Argyle, the bulky Scot who, along with his small
brother Gregor, does his best to get the crowd all wound up before the
show begins. Ophelia Moore is the resident top heavy wench of the cast,
and an assortment of other players including the "just not quite
wanting to be bothered" Mercurio. The list of characters goes on
and on—about twelve at last count—so I'll defer you to the 
On
the other side of the spectrum is the Renaissance Sword Theatre. This
large group, which has been performing for many, many years, is a totally
unchoreographed live steel combat troupe. There is a very good
historical introduction where Geordie explains the evolution of various
forms of swords. As each item is explained another cast member steps forward
to show off the weapon and perform a few maneuvers using it. This is excellent
and really gives you an idea of what things must have been like in the
time period they portray.
Lastly
we take a moment to look at our newest discovery: MacFarlane Live Steel.
This group, which we saw at the Osceola Renaissance Affaire, is a choreographed
live steel presentation. The three shows are all different and they follow
an evolving storyline. At the start of the day a history lesson is given
about the evolution of metals and swords (similar to how Renaissance Sword
Theatre operates). A young volunteer is chosen to help demonstrate the
difference in weight between a combat sword and a rapier. A quick bit
of sword play is interrupted when the mysterious Dark Knight arrives to
challenge our hero. The battle is quick and leaves the audience needing
to return later in the day for the remaining two fights that were agreed
upon.