It’s all a ‘bag of moonshine’…Northamptonian dialect celebrated for World Voice Day by UON Acting students

As the world joins together to celebrate World Voice Day (16 April), the research of a local historian into one philologists’ pioneering work on the Northampton dialect has inspired a team of University of Northampton staff and students to take to the small screen.

World Voice Day takes place on April 16th, offering the opportunity to celebrate the voice and raise public awareness of how it is central to human communication, identity, and culture.

To celebrate this annual event, a team of Acting students and academics have joined forces to deliver an insightful performance created entirely using the historical – and mostly forgotten – dialect of Northampton.

The performance (which is available to watch now on YouTube) is acted by second-year students, Sadie Hylott and Benjamin Bayes, who pulled up their ‘crooked stockings’ to deliver the historical scene piece, written by the University’s Associate Lecturer (Acting & Drama) Dan McGarry.

The inspiration behind this creative performance is the ongoing work of local historian, Kayley Porter, who has been researching the life of philologist, historian and illustrator Ann Baker (16 June 1786 – 22 April 1861). Ann Baker spent 11 years meticulously restoring the town’s St Peters Church, as well as dedicating her life to collecting thousands of dialect words of Northampton town.

Ann’s ‘Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases’ formed the basis of the final performance, leaning into long-forgotten phrases which included ‘bag of moonshine’ (an illusory deception), ‘creep up your sleeve’ (a colloquial phrase for endeavouring to obtain a favour by coaxing), ‘cross wamping’ (contradicting, wrangling, seeking to provoke a quarrel), and ‘crooked stockings’ (a phrase applied to a man who is so inebriated that he is unable to walk straight).

As an additional honour to Ann Baker’s historical impact, student Sadie recorded a brief second performance which recited the words of Anne Baker’s own poetic dedication, which opens the first volume of her book: “I twine / The hope to be remembered in my line / With my land’s language / By noting e’er they fade away / The words and sports of yesterday.”

As Northamptonians themselves, Sadie and Benjamin spoke of their experience recording the performance: “We were really excited to be part of the project because we both feel a personal connection to it as we’re both born and bred in Northampton. It was great to perform a scene written about our town, by one of our academics who is also local and equally as enthusiastic to shout about our town’s heritage and history.”

Senior Lecturer in Acting and Drama, and Project Lead, Gemma Boaden added: “I was personally excited to bring this topic to life, as I specialise in accent and dialect as a voice coach but that this dialect is part of my own history as a Northamptonian.”

“As part of the project, I put out a call to our lecturers and acting students to see who would be interested to take part, and was thrilled when Dan, Sadie and Ben got in touch to volunteer. Local historian Kayley reached out to us as a result of our first-year Acting students performing in St Peter’s Church annually. It’s been wonderful to see our students connect Ann’s lineage with the Northamptonian dialect and being able to perform in the church itself, a space so lovingly restored by Ann Baker in the 1800s.

“It was really exciting to connect with the historical language of my town. I think there are some fantastic terms in there that we should bring back into common parlance. ‘Crooked stockings’ I can see being used by many!”

Plans are in the works to develop more performative pieces on the Northamptonian dialect to celebrate the anniversary of Ann Baker’s birthday on 16 June. More details on this to come.

Find out more about studying Acting for Stage and Screen at the University of Northampton.