...jesters

Acting the joker in a colourful costume!

This is something that young people can do by itself, or combine it with some of the other skills such as mime, stilt walking, juggling, magic tricks or unicycling, or as the link between performances.

But to be a jester, you will need:

• Colourful multi-pointed hat (preferably with small bells at each point).
• Colourful costume.
• A stick with a copy of the jesters head on it, and bells attached to jangle.
• Simple jokes to tell.

Some of the skills learned in miming can help in giving an expressive performance, rather than just standing up and telling jokes. The jester is as much an actor as a joke teller.

Joke books can be obtained from many book shops.

Some web sites to look at are:

www.kidsjokes.co.uk has an A-Z of 'knock-knock' jokes.
www.elephantjokes.co.uk for... Guess!
www.scatty.com for scatty jokes.

There are other websites, but material needs to be checked since they may be either offensive or inappropriate.

Most of us will associate the jester with medieval entertainment during banquets. He would typically be seated as his master's side and give an amusing, if somewhat cutting, commentary on those at the banquet. He could get away with it since he was treated as a fool and probably had some sort of physical deformity. He was the lucky one since at least he was employed. Other jesters could well have been the 'village idiot', scraping or begging for meals.