It is customary at Christmas time in some parts of the UK is for a group of men to perform one or more traditional Old English short plays in pubs to entertain the drinkers and usually nowadays to collect for charity. The group of men are known as Mummers, and the plays they perform are generally quite stylised, fairly bawdy in nature, follow a known pattern and have a standard cast of characters with some of the men dressed as women. Many of the scripts date from at least Victorian times, and often well before that, having been handed down from generation to generation.

Whilst John Bartlett is a devotee of the tradition of Mumming; English Folk Music and Morris Dancing, he has noticed over the years that a modern-day pub audience often has difficulty in understanding the language used and concepts portrayed in these old scripts.

Being a playwright, he decided to bring Mumming bang up-to-date in this collection of six modern Mummers plays. In doing so he has kept the traditional elements but made them more accessible to those used to soaps and sex.