Here are a selection of radio and print media appearances
(India, Germany)
and even the odd film and TV spot…
Reviews
This review describes me doing live with 300+ adult audience what my book “StoryMaker” teaches – creating a new story in the moment using a preset structure. It works!
Der Rheinische Post 2024
White shirt with puffed sleeves, red curls, goatee – Giles Abbott’s resemblance to the British bard is unmistakable as he stands on the stage of the Neuss Globe on Saturday morning. The storyteller enthusiastically waves a long white feather while the audience, under his guidance, creates its own protagonist for a new story set in Shakespeare’s time.
“We need more qualities for the character,” the Brit calls out to the crowd. “Sings beautifully but can’t dance,” shouts a man from the back rows of the theater, earning loud laughter. “Fantastic,” says Abbott. Over time, a blueprint emerges for the audience’s interactively designed story, and it becomes clear that they intend to spare the storyteller no absurdity that afternoon.
Normally, Giles Abbott tells his own stories, but he also captivates both children and adults with fairy tales and myths from around the world. When he almost completely lost his eyesight in 1999, Abbott discovered his passion for storytelling. As a professional and multiple award-winning storyteller, Giles Abbott is England’s only nearly blind storytelling artist. He was first invited to the Shakespeare Festival in Neuss in 2021 and has since become a permanent part of the program.
He once again demonstrated his mastery of the craft: skillfully and spontaneously, the Brit embellishes the initially somewhat chaotic story created by the audience and then weaves the individual elements into a complete narrative, which he presents on stage with confidence and charisma. When Giles Abbott tells a story, it’s not just verbal – with deliberately used facial expressions and acting, he completely captivates his audience.
“I really enjoyed the stories. I especially loved how he involved the audience. I’ve never experienced anything like it,” a listener enthuses afterward.
DER RHEINISCHE POST 2023 “Steeped In Blood – Macbeth”
MASTERFUL FAST-FORWARD
NEUSS
British storyteller Giles Abbott takes the audience on a wild Shakespearean journey and immerses them deeply in Shakespeare’s world.
As Giles Abbott takes the stage on Saturday night, it’s pretty windy outside. One could even speak of a small storm sweeping across the festival grounds. It wouldn’t be scary. Normally. If Abbott, a master of storytelling, didn’t begin his story about Macbeth directly with the three “Weird Sisters”, the three fateful witches who prophesy the royal general’s rise to kingship. And if you’re familiar with the original scene from the tragedy by William Shakespeare you will know that a violent thunderstorm is brewing when the three sisters of destiny meet and ominously recite “When shall we three meet again? In Thunder, Lightning or in Rain?” and it howls through the Scottish Highlands.
Abbott could not have asked for a better setting for his performance. During the show, the doors of the Globe Theater, Neuss, rattled and the Briton, who fell in love with traditional storytelling in a pub in West Yorkshire at the beginning of the millennium and who has been awarded several prizes for this art, managed to convey the background story to the audience within a few minutes and to make the most important protagonists of the five-act play comprehensible. Very impressive. Because it’s not easy. As a listener, you first have to be able and willing to immerse yourself in the historical and cultural context of the piece and then remember names like Macbeth, Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Fleance or Macduff. Evelyn Hamann (German comedienne from the 70’s who did a famous skit on the complexity of English pronunciation ) would really enjoy reciting these names, and it is probably even more than understandable for all English teachers if their student, after reading the notorious “Reclam“ edition of Macbeth will be tossing their book straight into the bin out of sheer frustration.
But Abbott wouldn’t be Abbott if he didn’t know and wasn’t prepared for all of this. And so he skilfully pulls together the storylines of the classic story, skims scenes that seem less important to him and instead emphasises the details of the individual characters through dynamic facial expressions and gestures. It’s wonderful how, for example, he stages the cunning of Lady Macbeth time and time again:
“Well, dear, you’ve certainly succeeded in killing the party…” The audience has succumbed to Abbott’s narrative charm from minute one.
And, after about an hour, that which was inevitable happens: Macbeth’s reign of terror is crushed, he is killed and order restored in Scotland. And, outside, the sun shines again.“
2017
Anthropolitan – an article written by a UCL anthropology doctorate student
Lightning & Lies 2 at the Queen Of Hoxton review of a performance of Viking mythology of the roof of an East London bar!
Alexander Pope – A Quest For Perfection – reviewed by Jonathan Holt for “Follies”
