BFI

Devised by 'Master of the Pageant' Louis Napoleon Parker, the Bury St Edmunds Pageant of 1907 featured residents re-enacting scenes from the Suffolk town's distinguished history. Covering the extensive period from Queen Boudica to Queen Elizabeth, the pageant also staged the gruesome beheading of St. Edmund himself. The pageant was staged and filmed in the grounds of St Edmunds Abby and this fascinating film captures the incredibly elaborate costumes, detailed props and complex staging of this intriguing event. Indeed it was Parker himself who sparked the craze for pageants when he staged the 1905 Sherborne Pageant, also recorded on film.

A comparison between the two films reveals a greater sense of cinematic staging, as well as the addition of intertitles, in the later Bury St. Edmunds Pageant. It also seems that the pageant was now geared more towards the camera than to the local audience.

Christian Hayes

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