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Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection Is Back!

After a sold out run at Pope’s Grotto and Twickenham Library, Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection is back! I will be performing the show at The Old Sorting Office in Barnes on 13th October – tickets are now on sale here.

Pope is a poet I avoided at Uni because his idea of poetry is so different to ours now – despite my father being a fan! Creating this show was intense and I’m so glad I did because he is truly inspirational. Imagine, a chronically and critically disabled man, an outsider to English society (he was Catholic) whose formal education stopped at 12 who nonetheless managed by sheer brilliance to make himself central to English cultural and intellectual life, a midget who remains a giant of English Literature?! It’s all true – come and hear his extraordinary story.

Here’s a little preview to get you in the mood…

 

1. Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection clip - Giles Abbott     

But if you can’t make 13th October I’ll be back with the show next year at the National Portrait Gallery on 18th May and at the Twickenham Festival in June. For ticket details and further dates keep an eye out on Facebook, Twitter and of course, this blog (and if you’ve not subscribed there’s a handy box for that…).

Hope to see you there!
G;{~

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New Season of Stories on a Sunday Now ON SALE!

Tickets are now on sale for all of 2018’s Stories on a Sunday at The Last Tuesday Society at The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Hackney. Booking through TicketWeb Stories On A Sunday 2018 tickets.

It’s always fun choosing themes & stories to suit the magical & exotic setting of the Museum Of Curiosities. This gig is one of the gems in my monthly calendar – intimate, daring, exciting. Guests tell me the storytelling, the Museum, the experience all add up to a magical evening. Book now – tickets are already selling fast.

Stories On A Sunday 2018

 

Jan 14  “A Little Warm Death”

The dead month of January, cold, bleak, dark. We’ve got just the thing for you- a warm little death. From Nigeria, a young man falls for a woman who keeps disappearing. Amidst the dreaming spires of Oxford a beautiful student falls for a stunning older woman. A collector, she says, but of what? Scary, sexy, shocking – aren’t you tempted to A Little Warm Death?

A Little Warm Death

 

Feb 11th –  My Bawdy Valentine – Tales To Make Saint Valentine Blush 

Chaucer, Boccaccio, other mucky so & so’s, make their entrance in evening of filthy, saucy, raucous bawdery in the finest ooh er missis tradition of it all if you know what I mean?! Ooh stop it. Red-hot irons on smooth white buttocks, horny wives & husbands with horns, ooh, go on, I dare you! You know you want it….

My Bawdy Valentine

 

March 11th – Mother

It’s Mothering Sunday. Easter is coming. When better for stories of the Mother of Mothers and original Easter Bunny, Ishtar aka Inana. 5000 years ago we worshipped her in Mesopotamia, in Babylon, as goddess of desire, of love. How much would you like to meet her? Trust us, she’s one cool mother….

Mother

April 8th – What Fools These Mortals Be…

Feeling foolish? Wish to sail on the Ship Of Fools? Giles Abbott will be your blind captain. All aboard as we set sail for a joyful evening of folly and silliness with fools from Britain, Norway, Turkey and Egypt. Book now – you’d be fools not to.

What Fools These Mortals Be

May 13th Mermaids

Spring tides are high – can you hear the mermaids singing? Under the LTS’s real fake mermaid, we offer stories of Mermaids claiming back their melancholy, their beauty, their power. Featuring love, loss, longing & the everlasting kisses of the sea we take the sugar out of Mermaid tales & put the salt back in, in tales in which the Mermaids get their real tails back. Back by popular demand.

Mermaids

 

June 10th is in abeyance as Mr Abbott is most likely performing in a Norman castle looming over the sea cliffs of Wales.

July 8th The Luck Of The Irish

 

….is to be one of the great storytelling nations of the world. Join us for an evening of ancient Irish myth, stories of the Otherworld & the actual tale which inspired Irishman Bram Stoker to create his immortal Dracula.

The Luck Of The Irish

 

Aug 12 Cock Tales

 

Due to popular demand, against our better judgement, we’ve given in and agreed to once more unzip “Cock Tales”, our popular evening of cocktails matched with stories of cock, cockerels, poultry, poulterers & hen-keeping. Honest. Well hung for over 28 days, our stories are game. Are you?

Cock Tales

 

Sept 9 The Last Hero – Odysseus

 

Forced to go to war, keener to use wits than weapons, how did this reluctant warrior become the last of the Heroes? Drawn from Homer’s “Odyssey”, arguably the first ever European novel, we follow wily Odysseus as he faces dishonour, disaster, Death itself. Meeting by surprise his mother’s ghost he even comes face to face with one of our exhibits! Book now for these spell-binding & achingly humane stories.

The Last Hero – Odysseus

 

Oct 14 Real Old Horrors

 

Horror comes in many forms. For some it’s a creaking door & the smell of blood. Or it’s dark, & you know you’re not alone. For others it’s the pressing presence of evil. We promise you all this and more in a evening of skin-crawlingly gruesome, spine-tinglingly scary horror stories.

Real Old Horrors

 

Nov 11 Sparks Fly – The Love Of Sigurd & Brunhild

 

In Bonfire season come hear tales first told around fires in Iceland then throughout the Viking world before they went on to inspire English writers as diverse as William Blake, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien & Roger Lancelyn Green as well as composer Richard Wagner & the entire genre of fantasy fiction. The epic Ring Cycle spirals from innocence to crime to greed, murder, mutation and holds at its heart one of the greatest mythic love stories ever. WARNING – here bee dragons.

Sparks Fly – The Love Of Sigurd & Brunhild

 

Dec 9th Bah, Humbug!

Our annual jollity-free zone, our ever popular celebration of the other side of Christmas. Genuine traditional Christmas stories & songs of murder & blood-letting. C’mon, don’t say you’ve never been tempted?

Bah! Humbug!

 

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The Observer and I Get Down With Pope

So I’m fast approaching the final stretch of preparation for Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection. On Friday I suffered a bout of Popalysis, my head was so full of Popations that I couldn’t tell my Essay on Man from my Eloisa To Abelard. I was frozen, couldn’t settle on the next move the story had to make. But then I remembered “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” and I kept working. Sometime over the weekend I saw just enough of the road ahead to make the next move and, what do you know, I was writing again. Somehow I’d turned a dam into a flow. I knew that this would happen as that’s part of the process but it was a relief nonetheless!

Here’s a snippet of what it’s like being severely visually impaired and trying to research:

The next task, once the script is done, is to step away from it and use it as a starting point only because it’s all for nothing if I don’t get the story loose on my tongue. When that happens it really comes alive. I can tell the story. Without that all I can do is recite a script, which I won’t. Bring it on!

My first preview is on Saturday 21st May at The Proper Study of Mankind is Man: a symposium for Alexander Pope’s birthday hosted by Pope’s Grotto Preservation Trust at Pope’s actual Grotto in Twickenham (tickets still available here). To celebrate this moment (and Pope, of course), The Observer got in on the act. If you didn’t catch Vanessa Thorpe’s engrossing article in last Sunday’s edition, you can do so here.

And then on to my first public performance on Bank Holiday Monday 30th May at Orleans House Gallery (tickets still available here) and beyond…

I’m excited! I love it when a script comes together! Plus we have the poster!

Alexander Pope: A Search For Perfection Poster

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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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Word of Mouth Birthday Celebrations

My train from Bath took me straight North to Manchester and I arrived at Manchester Piccadilly just ½ hour before the storytelling started. Earphones, SatNav, charge!

I loved walking through Manchester, obeying the orders of the bossy woman’s voice I heard in my ears. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I recognised, having not visited Manchester in over a decade. Oxford Road where Sooz studied, that funny bar at the junction of Great Bridgewater Street and then The Briton’s Protection, a lovely pub named, with typically harsh Mancunian irony, after the Peterloo Massacre on St Peter’s Field, 16th August 1819, when the government read the Riot Act and commanded the Army to open fire on peaceful Chartist demonstrators. Still on the Statutes, the Riot Act.

I arrived with a minute to spare and there I found old friends like Honor Giles and Helen Stewart, who’ve been running the Word of Mouth Storytelling Club successfully for a number of years. I sat at the back not knowing, until he spoke, that I’d sat next to my old friend Nick. Then I heard Effie’s laugh & realised that my London friends, Richard Trouncer and Effie Giordanou were there too! I met Richard & Effie at Word Of Mouth, years ago. Richard & Effie met each other at Word Of Mouth. I was already enjoying this reunion.

Friday night I saw Amy Douglas telling stories with her musical partner Lucy Wells. “Wild Edrick” was very cleverly structured and a beautifully balanced evening’s storytelling. Funny, magical, humane, the story glid from Shropshire landscape to folklore, to history, to myth, and back. Subtly, but strongly political, different layers of the telling explored the relationship between Edrick and Goda, between the rich people hunting and the poor people getting fed, the shamanic relationship between hunter & hunted – in which the hunted gives consent to be hunted on the understanding that they will not be over-hunted, and the relationship between the ruled and their rulers. Really beautiful stuff.

More memory lane as I walked to my hotel, past the Central Library, the Art Museum. I was amazed just how much my mind had stored.

But on Sunday I was astounded at what the memory of Shonaleigh has stored. You think you’re a storyteller and then you hear Shonaleigh doing a Drut’syla telling. Wow.

The Drut’syla is a female Jewish storyteller. They have their own unique repertoire. Shonaleigh’s training by her Grandmother Edith Marx, which lasted from the age of four to eighteen, has equipped her with a repertoire of 3,500 interlaced stories. No, that’s not a typo. Really, three and a half thousand.

The way a Drut’syla telling works is fascinating. A story will intersect with another story which is alluded to with “but that’s another story,” to which the audience responds “for another time”. The teller then continues with the tale. But, if anyone in the audience says, for example, “no, tell us the story of the wine merchants” the Drut’syla will do so. Usually that story leads back to the one we were on, but not necessarily, and there’s no guarantee you’ll hear the end of any given story. Not that night, anyway, and traditionally a Drut’syla telling can last for nights.

I could’ve listened for weeks! It wasn’t just the depth of her repertoire and the sense of an entire world you could explore, but Shonaleigh’s telling is so spare, so clean, with never a word too many nor a description too long. Utterly hypnotic. I sincerely think Shonaleigh should be awarded Museum status as a sincere acknowledgement of her, of her Grandmother and their tradition and of the importance of intangible culture, paradoxically enduring and at the same time fragile. Now that’d be a Facebook petition to sign!

I’m taking a few days break now but I’ll be in touch next week to share some exciting developments in the Alexander Pope commission. And I plan to record some poetry for you. So, keep checking in! See you soon.

G ;{~

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The Storyteller of Bath (and Bristol)

So, the first week of March and I travelled down to Bath to stay with my friend Harry. Next day, Wednesday, I worked in a school in Bristol, running Poetry workshops for KS2 children. Wonderful fun. I used a structure-based approach similar to the work I do with StoryMaking, and the staff were amazed at how the right level of limitation liberated the children’s imagination. After my first class there was a break and, as she entered the staff room, my class’s teacher smiled broadly at a colleague.

“If only all learning could be like that!” she said.

And I sincerely believe that more of it can. The children created complex poems in which an everyday object tells their own story. Some poems were riddles and you had to guess what the object was, and some were metaphorically very rich. Everyone wrote something and now the staff will take these beginnings on further. Proper job satisfaction for me.

On Thursday, Harry and I did our best to destroy the best that Bath had to offer in the matter of ales and pies (very good at The Griffin). I saw a moving play at Bristol Old Vic called Pink Mist. Actually, it was very storytellery as all the characters narrated the story straight to the audience. There was no set and minimal props and actors created scenes with movement and posture. I’ve got so much to learn there. I happened to be seated amongst a clump of 6th Formers, A Level drama students. Kid next to me was all scorn at the end of first act, so above it all, telling everyone how he’d worked out the impending twist in Act 2. He had and he hadn’t. As Act 2 progressed, I noticed him stop fidgeting, start leaning forward listening intently. At the end he spun to his friends;

“Excellent!!!” he said.

He’d dropped into the story. So much better than being above it.

On Friday I worked in a different Bristol school and, at day’s end, boarded a train not to home, but to Manchester. Word Of Mouth Storytelling Club was celebrating its 21st Birthday. I cut my teeth there 17 years ago. I wasn’t going to miss their birthday for the world…

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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