PAGan pandemonium

Seamas Carey’s interactive history lesson/game show about folklore, rituals & traditions from Cornwall and beyond.

(Work in progress tour Spring 2020)

Humans are weird. Since the beginning of time we’ve created rituals, songs, dances and erected massive stones to help us figure out who we are and why we’re here. Sometimes we burn stuff too. 

 Seamas Carey is a bloke from Cornwall (where a lot of this funny business still goes on) and he’s set out to explore this massive topic through the medium of a madcap, Japanese game show.  Expect copious amounts of history, silly games, group singing, Morris dancing, audience participation and large inflatables. 

Pagan Pandemonium is a celebration of the weird and wonderful things that humans do. We’re all familiar with bonfires, may queens, standing stones, cheese rolling and serpent dances. But what does it all mean and why do we still do it? 

Emile Durkheim coined the phrase “Collective Effervescence” – an ecstatic feeling of excitement and togetherness that humans feel when they get together and perform a highly rousing event. Nearly every community across the British Isles has it’s own unique version of this. 

Seamas Carey wants to discuss the origins of these rituals, why we keep them, how they act as community healing and what would happen if we lost them…

The show engages the audience right from the start, submersing them into a raffle of fate. Bizarre games are played, songs and dances are learnt and by the end; the audience will partake in their very own ritual – simultaneously bonkers, uplifting and strangely moving.