Tim blogs...

Dear Friends,

Too long has past since last I posted here! Things have been busy, and that is healthy. I'm co-ordinating the monthly story-round meet in Sheffield's Old Queen's Head at the moment, organising the mailing lists and such. If you're in the city or surround area, and would like to hear what we've got going on, then let me know and I'll be sure you get the details!

I put on a night last week, at the Fat Cat on Kelham Island. It's a wonderful pub attached to the brewery in amongst the former steel works. The surrounds are a confusion; tangled vines burst from long abandoned factories whilst swish new apartment blocks grow just as vigorously alongside. What better place to put on an evening of Urban Fairytales? Ancient stories in modern settings. We filled the room
until every chair, every patch of floor, and then every armpit had a listener therein. It was incredibly positive, the evening served as a sort of litmus test for me on whether or not we could put such events on in Sheffield. A hat was passed and it came back heavy. If we can do that once every couple of months then we can think about guests, and so on and so forth, the future is ours to shape.

It was also a good learning activity. More and more of late I've realised how eager people are to laugh. That if something is funny now and again, then that carries a lot of the emotional intensity. It's an idea I'm going to take to extremes in my next big project:

In October, I'm looking to put on a night of classic absurd pieces, featuring Kafka's Metamorphosis and Gogol's The Nose. I will be joined onstage by a large, cuddly woodlouse. It will be hilarious, sad, and folly of the purest kind.

'til then
Tim

New website for Young Storyteller of the Year

The Young Storyteller of the Year will soon have a brand new website, and there's already a holding page.

Who should get involved?
Individuals, schools and colleges, youth groups and youth theatre, story clubs and festivals, folk clubs and festivals. Anyone dealing with young people who could be the storytellers of the future.

Comments on this blog, or email Fiona

COMING SOON!

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!

YOUNG STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR 2009

will take place in Birmingham on SATURDAY 7th MARCH

Contact us on fiona@tradartsteam.co.uk or 01490 430551 to join the mailing list

Inspiration from unexpected places

Ira Glass isn't talking about storytelling, but what he says is painfully true, especially when I look at my own recorded work.

Ira talks about creative work.

For me there is an enormously important thing happening in terms of how the world connects, and how creative people can be, and it's really all very wonderfully described here:

by Clay Shirky.

Inspiration comes from strange places, I think the important things are to share it and relish in it.

Mystery in the mundane

The Alden Biesen festival in Belgium was brilliant. Weird, but brilliant.

We were sitting at the back of a theatre, waiting for Daniel Morden to come onstage and tell the Oddyssey, when Rachel leant over to me.

"We're being paid for this." She said.

And I suppose technically we were being paid to tell stories to the coachloads of Belgian teenagers, and were just watching other shows between our gigs. But in that moment it was true, and more than that, it was a dream made real.

On which subject, next Thursday is the first gig of my tour with Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, opening in Sheffield. If you have no plans for Thursday and are in the Sheffield area then why not bimble along to the Showroom Cinema, for this fantastic adaptation of the medieval text, in story, song, and the beat of drums. Tickets are £5 (£3.50 concessions) and can be purchased on the door or from the Showroom Box Office on 0114 275 7727. Doors at 7.30 for a prompt 8.00 start.

But enough of me. I can't help but feel that it's time for some new blood around here...

There were no seasons

Good Morning,

It has been long time, a long time, and I apologise whole-heartedly for my absense. These feet, they hardly touch the ground, you know?

Rachel and I are off to the Storytelling Festival at Alden Biesen in Belgium tomorrow. A wonderful example of the doors that Young Tongues open, we were booked after one of the organisers saw us perform at the Beyond The Border festival last summer.

Here are Rachel and I at this years Young Storytellers contest, looking shifty.



And if you listen here, you can here Rachel giving you a tantalising taste of the Persephone myth, recorded for BBC radio.