The Coconutters
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The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers or Nutters are a troupe of Lancastrian clog dancers who perform every Easter in Bacup, Lancashire dancing across the town.
"The dance begins with each Nutter cocking a hand to his ear to listen to something we human folk can’t catch. They then wag a finger at each other, and they’re off, stamping and circling, occasionally holding bent wands covered with red, white and blue rosettes that they weave into simple patterns. It’s not pretty and it’s not clever. It is, simply, awe-inspiringly, astonishingly other. Morris men from southern troupes come and watch in slack-jawed silence. Nothing in the civilised world is quite as elementally bizarre and awkwardly compelling as the Coco-nutters of Bacup."
AA Gill, writing in The Sunday Times.
It would be a great shame if the Britannia Coconut Dancers, who dance and draw crowds all over the country (and even abroad), may face a future where they will no longer be able to dance in their own home town.
“We are the envy of the folk-dancing world. We can dance in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day or Yorkshire – but we can’t dance in our own town.” Neville Earnshaw. Britannia Coco-nut Dancers treasurer
The Britannia Coconut Dancers
