Matt gets into character
Matt Williams and Phil Harding love getting dressed up for cameos. This time they were Anglo Saxons and were going to be trained to 'flyte' - a ritualised insulting competition.
This meant we had to come up with some insults for them to use - and then translate them into old English.
Sam Newton, our Anglo Saxon historian, put together our repertoire of taunts with lines such as:
"Mattaeus ic þé onsecge þæt þín scofl is nú unscearp æfter géara ungebótes."
"Matthew, I to thee say that thine shovel is now blunt after years of misuse."
The decision to dress Matt and Phil as Anglo Saxons was only made at the last minute. That meant several hectic hours of calling costume houses across Oxfordshire and London trying to find some Anglo Saxon outfits. Fortunately a pair was located just in time (and in the right sizes).
We were also making a drinking cup for use in our Anglo Saxon finale. It was being hand crafted using as many traditional techniques as possible. The initial cup was turned from a piece of greenwood, which in the past would have been left to dry out naturally. Unfortunately we only had three days and the half finished cup had to be microwaved to mimic the drying out process.
