No Gang, but JANE

There is no Phoole and the Gang show this Friday, 12 September 2025, I'm sorry to say!

However, there IS a brief little Jane the Phoole live-in-person appearance on Saturday, 13 September MMXXV!

If you are in the vicinity of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA presently, it would be splendid to see you Saturday, 13 September at Argren Faire!

I Shall Go Out-Of-Doors!

On Saturday, 13 September MMXXV, if all goeth well, I shall be Jane the Phoole at the Argren Faire.

The Faire happens on Locust Street from Humboldt Boulevard to Fratney Street in Milwaukee, near Black Husky Brewery.

Argren Faire will be free and open from noon to eight o'clock at night - however, I will likely only be there from around two o'clock until around four o'clock. I am not officially an entertainer at this Faire - I am just visiting.

I have never been to this Faire before - it only began last year - so all information about it must be sought on RenList and on the event's FarceBark page.

I will be masked against the surging plague, and you could be too - let us protect each other.

For New Jane Phooligans

If you are new to me being Jane the Phoole, please read a great deal of information about me doing this 16th-century English court jester thing on my Fool-Asked Questions (FAQ) page at phoole.com/faq! Select the General Folly tab.

It Sure Has Been Six Years

It has been six long years since my last Jane the Phoole live-in-person appearance! Fortunately, I've been Jane at home all these years, all on my own in my bungalow, terrorizing my wife and cats with my RP dialect and my percussive laughter. Since we last convened in person, I have bathed in 16th-century socioeconomic history from primary sources.

One of my favorite reads from this long dark teatime of the soul has been Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700–1820 by J.M. Neeson via the Cambridge University Press. If you've ever wondered why 16th-century British country life seems so alluring a daydream-destination, or if you've ever wondered what happened before capitalism destroyed humanity and our planet, life in The Commons is a chunky and revelatory subject of study!

I am debuting a brand-new-to-you motley at Argren Faire, one I have never worn in public before. I made it two years ago.

I think I made it to try to force the pandemic to end, in a twisted, unrealistic, pathological kind of way. How could the pandemic be so cruel as to persist, when I have such a nice gown to wear? Well, as it turns out, mass global death is great for business, and the powerful don't really care about my clothes, no matter how many hundreds of separate pieces of 16th-century-dye-recipe diamond-weave wool twill I painstakingly patchworked together to make it.

It is the least-wrong motley I have made to date - while retaining many theatrical Jane-specific details that I require, it has fewer historical-appropriateness problems than any motley I have ever made. I am particularly proud of having solved a conundrum in the kirtle's construction, incorporating my trusty (and historically not-correct but I'm dependent on it) busk-and-bones stomacher into the kirtle while avoiding creating side-gaps in the skirt, by way of a secret half-waistband on just the front of the attached skirt, buttoning flat and concealing the placket fully under the stomacher. I hope you love it as much as I do!