19 hours Ago By [email protected] (Kirstie McCrum)
A crowdfunder has been launched to help put on Medieval Cornish plays. The St Just Ordinalia is a community theatre project on an epic scale which has been called "the root, spirit and soul of Cornwall". The group stages the Cornish Ordinalia trilogy of mystery plays in one of the oldest working amphitheatres in Great Britain - the Plen an Gwari or, in English, the playing place or place of the play.
The Ordinalia was last staged in St Just in September 2021, with a cast, choir and crew of over 230 volunteers, supported by a paid professional production team. The Crowdfunder explains: "Audiences of almost 6,000 people experienced these very special Medieval Cornish plays being brought to life. The three Ordinalia plays are the oldest surviving trilogy of plays in Great Britain, and one of the oldest written examples of the Cornish language.
"The plays were written primarily in Cornish with stage directions in Latin and included stage plans detailing how the plays were performed in the round. There are only three surviving Ordinalia manuscripts - an original fifteenth century manuscript, held in the Bodleian Library Oxford, a second in the Bodleian Library, and a third in the National Library of Wales." St Just Ordinalia is a project organised by St Just and District Trust CIO, a charity that support heritage and cultural projects which highlight the significance of St Just in Penwith.
The St Just Ordinalia is an educational, community-engaged heritage, language and arts project, providing voluntary and paid opportunities to hundreds of people. Pol Hodge, former Grand Bard of the Gorsedh Kernow, said: “The Ordinalia is quite simply the root, spirit and soul of Cornwall.” The team behind the Crowdfudner said: "We can use the funds you donate to our Crowdfunder as ‘match funding’ for grant applications to Arts Council England, National Heritage Lottery and other potential funding bodies.
We need substantial grant funding to make St Just Ordinalia happen. "To effectively manage a project of this scale we need a large paid professional team, money for materials, infrastructure, marketing and much more. That's why £7,000 is the minimum we need to start building our match funding to a sufficient level.
"Any amount we raise above our target would be a great bonus and used to bolster our match funding to a higher level." Those who donate to the crowdfunder can claim a number of rewards for donations between £15 and £400. More information is .
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