The Comical Fellow ~ Hume
The Comical Fellow ~ Hume is an English Country Dance. It was published by Thompson in 1776. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2018 and published in Colin Hume's Website. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. Someone thought this dance was Easy.
1st. Man set and turn the 2d. Wo. the 1st. Wo. set & turn the 2d. Man lead down the middle up again & cast off 1 Cu. & clap 4 times & turn single hands 6 round clap 4 times again and turn your Partner
Colin Hume says he would normally call this as a duple minor, but here is trying to show how it would have been danced in the Regency Period. He makes several changes from the more common version found in the Apted Book, all of which are more in keeping with the original material:
- This is a triple minor, not duple.
- The Apted Book gives 16 bars to the A part, while Thompson gives 8. Hume follows Thompson in making the two hand turns into a 2 bar move rather than 4, and leaving out the "fall back" which isn't in the original.
- The end of B1 remains a turn single, rather than a two hand turn half
- Colin Hume returns to the circle six (rather than rights and lefts) at the start of B2
Colin also suggests that dancing this as a three couple dance in a four couple set (Scottish style) would be a good idea.
The tune was published with the dance, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume.
The animation plays at 96 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily (no music plays during this slow set). Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, turn single, circle, cast, lead, down the middle and back (and probably others).
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2018 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.