Ballads on the Box

Ten minutes into The Gallows Pole on BBC and we hear the drone of a uilleann pipe swiftly followed by Radie Peat singing ‘what will we do when we have no money?’ The first period drama from This is England director Shane Meadows, The Gallows Pole is based on a Benjamin Myers novel and tells the story of Yorkshire’s Cragg Vale Coiners. Its score not only features the afore-mentioned Lankum, but also Swedish psych-rockers Goat (their score is available now on Rocket Recordings), transcendent Texan ensemble Balmorhea and two British musicians whose names have graced our pages in the past – Jennifer Reid and Tom Kitching – and whose contributions ground the show in its 18th-century setting.

Jennifer Reid (a performer and researcher of Lancastrian and Victorian ballads) plays Barb, a landlady who breaks into song throughout the series. One scene in the first episode sees Barb sing ‘The Miller of Dee’ as the townspeople worry about the fate of one of their own. When asked how she came to these songs, Reid tells us: “I chose all the songs from my own repertoire, and I broke into them at will during the scenes. We’d film for hours unbroken so when the feeling was right, I’d begin a song… To me the sentiment of the lyric, ‘I care for nobody no not I, if nobody cares for me,’ [in ‘The Miller of Dee’] was not an outright rejection of society, but a reaching out for a community where people contribute equally. This epitomised the coiners to me.”

Reid was musical director of the first episode’s memorable wake scene, where she is joined by Kitching on fiddle. She recalls: “I laid the tables with letterpress-printed broadside ballad sheets and spoke to actors separately about the songs I was going to sing and what songs they might like to sing or join in with. I remember calling Fine Time Fontayne and asking him if he'd like to sing 'The Saint Turn'd Sinner' as it was a song a member of the previous generation would have been familiar with. He agreed it would be fun to do and when it came to filming it, he was brilliant. He took my direction about performing it as though he was Vic Reeves on Shooting Stars when he sees a woman and it looks amazing on camera.” Kitching also has fond memories of the scene: “The wake was filmed over two days. On day one, they loaded the room with food, gave us each a drink, and told us to get on and have a party. Good work if you can get it! It was fairly free form, but there were certain milestones where something planned had to happen. On day two, we did the scene again, but concentrating on individual moments and conversations. The room stank of warm food by this stage.” The set-up created havoc with his fiddle. “It was a hot day, and they wanted to do it entirely by candlelight. To get enough light for the cameras this meant a staggering number of fat candles all burning at once… We’d had a fiddle set up in the style of the age, which meant gut strings. They went haywire in the hot, humid environment and I broke one just before the scene was shot. The whole thing was consequently hilariously out of tune throughout, but I reckon that’s a pretty fair representation of how a village player might have sounded in such circumstances!”

Bridget Christie in The Change

The Gallows Pole was not the only show with a strong folk connection to hit screens in June, as Channel 4 also began airing The Change. A comedy from Bridget Christie about a woman who takes a break from everyday life after being diagnosed with the menopause, the show features a soundtrack made up almost entirely of folk songs by the likes of Shirley Collins, John Renbourn and Angeline Morrison. Discussing the music, Christie has said: ‘During lockdown, I suddenly realised how much I loved my country. How rich in history and culture it is, how beautiful our landscape is, and how great as a people we can be. I felt very patriotic, and I realised that since Brexit, being patriotic is seen as a bad thing and I wanted to reclaim it. Weaving British folklore and folk music into the show seemed like the best way of doing that.’

Jim Howick (centre) and Boss Morris (right) in The Change

The eel festival that ends the series was another way of evoking British folklore. For this, the producers enlisted female morris dancing troupe, Boss Morris. Speaking of their role, Boss Morris tell us: “Bridget is such a great champion of folk dance and music & brought so many people together in the making of this. She was keen that we just did our thing and kept it as authentic as possible. We helped make the eel beast that appears in the final episode and Boss [Morris] dancer Josie Wickes handmade us a new kit especially. We adorned the kit with appliqué eels.” Regarding the involvement of other ‘folkies’, they say: “It was so special to hear Shirley Collins singing the theme tune and other artists such as Angeline Morrison and Stick in the Wheel included on the soundtrack. Our friend Ben Edge helped out as 'folk consultant' too.”

The Gallows Pole is available on BBC iPlayer; The Change is available on Channel 4