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Ginger Wig and Strolling Man at The Last Tuesday Society

screen-shot-2016-04-05-at-23-51-55So on Sunday 10th April I was back at The Last Tuesday Society telling stories about fools, it being April and all. And sitting at the table were Ginger Wig and Strolling Man, hardcore reviewers of theatre, musicals, performing arts, comedy and now Storytelling!

And they loved the show! Click here for what they had to say…

I’m back at The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities on Sunday 8th May. Unfortunately it’s returns only for this performance, BUT there are still some tickets left for the 7pm and 9pm performances on Sunday 12th June. Click here to book.

See you there! G;{~

ps And they didn’t even mention the ginger connection…!

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Pope Tickets now on sale at Orleans House Gallery!

Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection is gathering pace! Tickets are now on sale for Bank Holiday Monday 30th May at 1pm and 6pm at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham. Click here to secure your seats! At £5 each, it’s a bargain.

Orleans House is absolutely beautiful – right on the Thames (you can hear the ducks quacking from the grounds). It’s within easy reach of Richmond, Twickenham and St Margarets train stations and is a short walk through parkland from various bus stops. And there’s parking! If you don’t know this part of London, I’d really recommend you have a look (I grew up round here) as it certainly makes for a wonderful day out (not least because of the glorious riverside pubs…).

I’ll be performing in the Octagon Room – a stunning space designed by the architect James Gibbs. And Orleans House Gallery holds a special place in my heart as it holds photographs taken by the explorer Richard Francis Burton, another extraordinary man that I brought to life in my show Tongues of Flame.

So, 30th May, put it in your diaries. And if you can’t make this, I’ll also be performing a shorter version in Pope’s Grotto itself on 18th and 25th June as part of the Twickenham Festival, the full version at Twickenham Library on 4th July and again at The Old Sorting Office in Barnes on 13th October. For full details click here.

G ;{~

Orleans House, Twickenham by Joseph Nickolls (1689 - 1789)
Orleans House, Twickenham by Joseph Nickolls (1689 – 1789)
The Octagon Room, Orleans House Gallery, taken by Kevin Mullins
The Octagon Room, Orleans House Gallery, taken by Kevin Mullins
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I’m Ready For My Close Up, Mr Pope…

Last week we had a wild morning in Twickenham as it was time for me to get my mug shot for the publicity for Alexander Pope: A Search For PerfectionSo, donning the shirt that my amazing wife made for me, I became an 18th century dandy and posed for the lovely Cathy Cooper as she took photos of me in Pope’s Grotto and by the new Urn sculpture dedicated to Pope on the riverside. You’ll have to wait a little longer for the one we finally chose but here are some of the outtakes to keep you going… (captions welcome!)

(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper
(c) Cathy Cooper

 

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Sneak preview of Alexander Pope: A Search for Perfection

Be one of the first people to see Alexander Pope: A Search for Perfection! I will be performing a sneak preview of my latest show at the Pope’s Grotto Preservation Trust symposium “The proper study of Mankind is Man” on Saturday 21st May 2016 at Radnor House School, Twickenham.

As it will be the first time I will have performed the piece in public, there will be an opportunity to feedback – who knows, you comments might help shape the final piece!

But the symposium is not all about me. Throughout the day there will be talks from leading authorities on Pope, a garden archaeologist and the planned virtual reconstruction of the Grotto. It’s a really exciting line up and you even get lunch.

For more information you can download the press release here and to book your tickets click here.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

G ;{~

 

Pope's Grotto ID                                              lottery_png_black1

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Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection tickets now on sale!

Great news!

Tickets for my latest storytelling piece Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection are now on sale for performances at Pope’s Grotto during the Twickenham Festival on Saturday 18th and Saturday 25th June 2016.

You can buy single or family tickets and I will be telling stories throughout the day giving you the chance to both listen to me and explore Pope’s fabulous and very curious Grotto.

Tickets are available via Eventbrite. For more information about the event please go to The Pope’s Grotto Preservation Trust Events and News page and subscribe to their email list. And of course, follow me on Facebook and Twitter for further updates!

More tickets for more dates will be available soon…

I hope to see you there!

G ;{~

 

Pope's Grotto ID

lottery_png_black1

 

 

 

 

 

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Imagine Children’s Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London

On Monday morning, 15th Feb, at the Royal Festival Hall in London, I ran an hour long session for blind children and their siblings at the Imagine Festival. My brief was to involve the children in a highly interactive storymaking session. This would draw on previous work I’ve done in Norfolk with blind children on behalf of the County Council’s Sensory Impairment Services. I started by telling a couple of very ‘joiny-inny’ stories and got the children singing, clapping, beating drums and shaking tambourines and maracas. In order to take the interactivity to another level I began to tell them a story, asking them to choose for themselves the elements that I could weave into the story as it happened. The result was a story about a knight who lacked courage, rode on a small steam-breathing dragon, and was armed only with an ordinary wooden stick. I told this new story back to them and asked “Who made up that story?” “WE DID!!” they chorused. By the time we’d told two interactive stories and co-devised a third, we had only seven minutes left. “Right,” I said, “let’s make up a complete story from scratch, only using your ideas….” Using Story Structure, we did. I was able to tell the them the tale they’d invented (to be honest, we told it together). Elements included: a giant horn-lacking unicorn! Quacking like a duck! International travel! Blackbirds! Lots of them! Struggles! Danger! Love, and, of course, a very happy ending.

Bloody good story, I reckon, given the time constraints, but this is one of the key things about the StoryMaking work I do. Speed helps. I found it fascinating that this group of blind children created a story about an animal born lacking something everyone else around him possessed.

I was speaking afterwards to one of the dads and an idea popped up – what about setting up a storytelling club for blind children in London, where they could develop their creativity, explore and express their articulacy as well as developing their confidence? What do you reckon – should I do it?

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My Hackney Valentine…

Then we were home.

We were both genuinely sad to leave so shining a country, so energetic, so optimistic. We were sad to leave the graciousness, the warmth of Indians behind, to say nothing of the warmth of India itself. India was cotton shirts, tee shirts. Home was damp, clammy, cold, but still home. We realised, on disembarking from the plane that straightaway we would need our woollen armour.

Next day, Sunday 14th, I told love stories for Valentine’s at the Viktor Wynd Museum Of Curiosities (my monthly residency). It interested me – the Museum is based on the camera fabula of 18th and 19th Century Englishmen, a box or a room crammed with exotic treasures picked up on voyages as the English explored the wider world. One of those exotic treasures, acquired first by a private company and then by the Crown, was India, all of it. In Hackney, young men in Victorian style beards, and their vintage-fabulous ladies, lost themselves in traditional love stories. It was interesting to reflect on that deep and long relationship between two cultures, which still persists. In India I saw endless cricket and English place names. In Hackney, as well as British Indians, of course, I see young men with large beards and elaborate moustaches which were originally inspired by that British contact with India, where moustaches are still almost de rigeur. That night I told the story of Shukuntala, a beautiful Indian story that Gorg Chand told me years ago. It features the kindness of a king’s daughter, the greed of a god and love for a blinded sage. It seemed right.

A late night, especially after all that travel and with my body  clock 5 ½ hours ahead, but worth it. Telling good stories is always worth it. Next day would bring another early start and “Storytelling Mayhem”, a workshop with blind children for the Imagine Children’s Festival. I went to sleep not knowing what stories I would tell the children the next day. Why? Well, we were yet to invent them together.

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StoryMaking and Voice Workshops, Chandigarh

So, I taught the last of five workshops, one each in Kolkata, Delhi, and two in Chandigarh. These are the kind of workshops I would love to do more often with teachers in UK. Essentially, it puts staff in touch with their memory, their imagination and with the natural storyteller in all of them. It is so rewarding to teach.

Children always sound excited when I tell them there are going to be no written notes. Grown-ups sound alarmed. I have to explain that, when you say “I’m writing it down so I can remember,” in fact, you are writing it down so you can forget. And of course staff were much more able to remember things than they thought and, at the end, were all confident they could replicate the workshop I taught them with their pupils, and were excited to do so.

So I taught them a Memory Technique from Ancient Rome (Cicero, if you’re interested in provenance) and then used that to get them to memorise a content-free story structure. Then, in just over five minutes (I kid you not) staff, in groups, were able to create new stories, each different from those of other groups, which are guaranteed to hang together and maintain listener attention because they are based on the same Story Structure as Star Wars (the first ever and the most recent) and, for that matter, the Ramayana. Having  used this structure to devise the story we were then able to spend the rest of the workshop exploring the language used to develop the story and the voice used to deliver the story. All staff said they were amazed by the  way that a little limitation of choice actually liberates, rather than kills, imagination, and agreed that nothing kills inventiveness more than absolute freedom of choice. A strange paradox, but something I’ve found again and again.

Best of all, I got to hear them tell stories! It never ceases to give me joy. I can remember, when I was 11ish, some friends and I were all discussing telepathy, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could put thoughts inside someone else’s head? I now know we can – use language to name things, describe things, narrate things, and a whole world can burst into life inside somebody else’s head.  You put it there.

Here are some pictures of the lovely people I worked with in Chandigarh…..

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hard at work on their stories
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and happy with their achievements after

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A short clip!

Thank you to Rituparna Ghosh @Rituparna_Ghosh who filmed this clip from the audience at the Kathakar International Storytellers Festival. I’m telling Mr Fox – we join the story just as the romantic head games begin…