'Ole In The Ark

A comic monologue in broad Lancashire dialect that reimagines the Ark story through the eyes of a stubborn old farmer who flatly refuses to board Noah's vessel - until circumstances become rather persuasive. Marriott Edgar was the master of the theatrical verse monologue, and this piece showcases his genius: taking the grand biblical narrative and filtering it through a pragmatic northern working-class consciousness that sees the whole affair as rather inconvenient. The humor lands through the collision of the sacred and the profane, delivered in rolling rhythms meant to be performed rather than merely read. These poems were written to be spoken aloud, preferably in a thick northern accent after a few pints. Edgar wrote dozens of these for Stanley Holloway to perform, and they became cornerstone pieces of British music hall tradition.