I’m looking for inspiration for an event, basically a sort of festival, 9 days long, which is hosted by a different country each year. It’s generally attended by approx 5-6 thousand people, primarily European, but some from further afield as well. In 2019, it’s England’s turn.
This isn’t a request for advice on actual organisation (I’m not really involved in the serious bits), but for fun things to to make it memorably British. I know what the British stereotypical views of ourselves are, but I don’t really know what other countries think is a British cliché, and we don’t want it to turn into too much of an in-joke fest. I’m ideally looking for stereotypes that can be turned into suggestions for silly things we can do, workshops we can advertise, or just things that will make people laugh. We’re more than happy to make fun of ourselves. At the moment I’m mostly focusing on England (being English- we have a group from Scotland as well, not sure on Wales and Northern Ireland yet, it’s early days).
We don’t have a massive budget, but we can probably get some for a good enough idea, and we can probably get a lot of volunteer hours, both for prep over the next two years and during the actual event.
Current ideas include handing out tea and cucumber sandwiches to people queuing correctly on the way in, mock fox hunts (on hobby horses), passive aggressive apology workshops… Hopefully you get the idea.
Any suggestions appreciated (especially funny ones). What does Britishness mean to you?
Cricket.
Morris dancing.
Bowler hats.
Umbrellas.
Queuing.
Drinking tea.
Sherlock Holmes.
Robin Hood.
Doctor Who.
Stonehenge.
Tower of London.
London Bridge.
British is English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish. I know the definition of territory Britain excludes Northern Ireland, but at the moment if you’re using the term they are included.
One stereotype from Spain, hoping it won’t lose too much in translation:
A telegram arrived as the English businessman was putting his jacket on to leave the office on a Friday afternoon. He signed for it and left it in his “in” tray unopened, saying as he closed the door behind himself “man, will I have such bad news on Monday!”
We consider the two-day weekend as the best of all inventions to come out of Evil Albion, and reckon that you guys are skilled in the art of leaving work at work. We also admire your response to bad times of all kinds; I’m not talking about the famous “stiff upper lip”, but about normal people running to help those who have been hurt either by some asshole or by an act of nature. On the bad side, the assumption upon seeing an agressive drunk who spouts something that sounds like it may be some version of Her Most British Majesty’s language and looks like a badly-grilled shrimp (black and hot pink) is that he’s English.
Another stereotype that I have which I can’t shake even though I know it’s not true is that they’d be on hard liquor, especially gin, on these benders, whereas it’s more difficult for me to think of them getting really and truly wasted on beer. I know that these days about the only thing not used for this purpose as much is fine wine (had to add “fine” to exclude Buckfast.)
We want both- the actual event is in England, the team putting it on are from all over,
including a few organisers from each country. Finding a funny, but accurate, way to explain the differences to attendees is already on The List (isn’t Northern Ireland part of Britain btw, just not Great Britain, which is the island? That’s how I’ve heard it defined).
We did suggest shipping in some drunk, belligerent, sunburned Scousers for some added authenticity, but it got ruled out, for some reason
Isn’t there a website for all the old Punch cartoons? There was a wonderful series called “The British Character” that ran all through the '20s and '30s.
How about lacking in expressed emotion? Also extreme shyness especially when it comes to asking out a girl. Also look for a YouTube video on the difference between British and American humor.
Stiff upper lip contest: contestants pair up, staring at each other upclose. First to lose stiff upper lip loses. Winner goes on to face another winner until there is only one. That player is declared queen/king and wears a monocle as prize.
Pictionary on the theme of: Things we hate about/are jealous of the French.
definitely not black, 'cept maybe the hair.