In 1895, the star attractions at the Mold Carnival were Leino, the Flying Trapezist; Signor Rovollo, the Gymnastic Wonder and Professor Crannio,’The Marvellous Conjurer.
In 1904, Carnival music was supplied by the Royal Buckley Town Prize Band. There was the Best Decorated Bicycle competition, Riders on Horseback and The Procession of Gigantic Proportions, which paraded through Mold’s principal streets, its salient features being six brass bands. At the close of The Procession, the public congregated at the Black Lion Hotel where dancing took place to music supplied by the Brymbo Steel Works Prize Band. Takings for the Carnival in 1904 were about £68, and after putting aside an amount for the following years’ show, £25 was handed over to the Mold Cottage Hospital Fund. (Note – this information is from the Mold Carnival website and was provided by local Historian David Rowe.)
Mold Carnival has form. It’s representative of a genre of activity that is widespread and perhaps an example of best practice, not too small to be meaningless but not too large to be commercially exploited. It’s still organised by volunteers and in 2024 it attracted over 6,000 people to its events. This is what grassroots cultural activity looks like (in terms of grass, the organisers get a lot of help from local people cutting the grass on the two fields where the Carnival is held).
The Eisteddfod Mold Carnival is not but there is an almost infinite variety of strata in this type of cultural activity. The Eisteddfod is not Glastonbury and Glastonbury is not Edinburgh, which is not Bayreuth. Carnivals, like festivals, have a role to play, otherwise they would disappear.
This year I thought I might participate in the ‘Time 2 Shine’ Mold Carnival talent show, not because I am talented but because I like a challenge and it looked like a good way to see the event from the inside.
I am a (very) amateur piano accordion player. I thought I’d play a simple version of the famous Czardas, composed in 1904 by Monti (go to https://youtu.be/_Zjz6oLuaxw if you want to hear it played properly).
A Czardas is a traditional Hungarian folk dance, getting its name from the old Hungarian term for roadside tavern. Its origin was a death dance, in which a soldier fights with an opponent, looks for his weak points, then kills him and dances in joy. It starts slowly, speeds up, slows down and then finishes quickly. I thought it might be suitable for the Carnival…
Lined up against me in the talent competition were a young man playing Chopin on a keyboard, a teenager impersonating Chuck Berry, a vocalist with an Adele song, a girl reciting her poem about what she would do if she were Queen for a day and some very young singers performing their favourite pop songs to backing tracks (they were all word perfect).
You can’t judge the talent in a line-up like that. I don’t say this because I didn’t win (!) but because more than the difference between apples and pears is involved. The only original performer was the poet. It’s not easy to either write or recite your own funny poem. The most technically accomplished performer was the Chopin player, who would have put in a lot of practice on his Grade 8 exam piece. The most entertaining performer by far was the Chuck Berry impersonator. But then the vocalist was employment-ready standard, and the very young performers’ singing was as accurate as their recall of their lyrics. Then there was me – but you always attract an eccentric when you have an open-door policy.
I was perfectly happy to have performed the Czardas satisfactorily, if at two-thirds speed. A couple of people had asked me what my accordion was, so I think I reminded the Carnival-goers of what is now a vanishing instrument in the UK. Children danced as I played and I got enough applause to go home quite pleased with myself.
I think the Adele singer and Chuck Berry won the senior and junior categories because they conformed most closely to what talent show judges are looking for, but that’s beside the point. The point is that creative performance activity can and does take place in a variety of styles, irrespective of economics. It makes a significant contribution to social celebration – the Mold Carnival feeling like a gigantic garden party, with its mountain bike acrobatics, its fire-eater and the alien robot wandering around in front of the Territorial Army. The only question is – Is It Art?
The short answer to that is No. There was not enough originality, technical ability or depth of feeling on show for anything to be discussed in artistic terms (especially not if you want to compare what was on offer with what gets performed in the street at major festivals). However, art does not appear out of thin air and artists have journey to make. It’s possible that at some point in the future the author of ‘What I would do If I was Queen for a day’ will one day release a first collection. It’s possible that the Chopin player will become a modern composer. It’s possible that the young Chuck Berry impersonator will develop his own persona and become the next Mick Jagger.
It’s that possibility which counts, alongside the opportunity events like Mold Carnival give young people the chance to experiment and gain experience. There is nothing quite like appearing on stage in front of a substantial live audience, especially if you are only nine years old. The theatre in the UK depends heavily on both musicals and pantomimes for its survival and carnivals help to feed future cast members into the system. So it’s not exactly what you see taking place, so much as what it all represents that matters.
I’m already wondering what I might brush up to perform this year.
The csárdás is characterized by a variation in tempo: it starts out slowly (lassú) and ends in a very fast tempo (friss, literally “fresh”).
The dancers are both male and female, with the women dressed in traditional wide skirts, which form a distinctive shape when they whirl.
(3 / 5)
(4 / 5)
(2 / 5)
