The Deptford Jack | Film Screening

Presented by HERESY, accompanying his recent book Jack Is Alive, published by New Dimension.

The film documents the Deptford Jack in the Green, a May Day tradition revived in South East London by the Fowlers Troop in the early 1980s, drawing on a much older local custom. Part procession, part performance, part public ritual, the event centres on a figure enclosed in a tall structure of leaves and flowers, moving through the streets with musicians, Morris dancers and followers.

Placing the Deptford celebration within the wider history of Jack in the Green, Overin’s film reflects on the endurance of English folk custom and the ways it continues to be remade, inhabited and kept alive. As with Jack Is Alive, the focus is not on folklore as a static relic, but as a living form shaped by place, community and repetition.

A film by Luke Overin
Presented by New Dimension
Duration 2 minutes and 48 second
2019