This Halloween I was booked to provide entertainment at a birthday party for an 11 year old. I selected some of my favourite spooky stories giving some of them a modern twist for the young audience (a Tudor mansion became a three bed semi). I also decided to complement the more traditional storytelling with a sensory exercise based upon William Shakespeare’s spell from “Macbeth”, beginning “Double, double toil and trouble”.
On the night I was located away from the rest of the party. This not only allowed me to work with the minimum of interruption but gave me the time and space to set up a series of bowls with the different elements of the spell in each. The elements were inspired by Shakespeare’s famous verse which reads almost like a shopping list for making a really noxious potion. Even though it is famous the language is 500 years old, some of the things on the list are unfamiliar and some could be texturally similar so it took me a lot of time to think of what to use and how to differentiate between them. In the end I sourced a lot of the elements from the pic and mix at the supermarket (the Adder’s fork and blindworm’s sting became a jelly snake which had been covered in strawberry jelly). For wool of bat I used wool, for howlett’s wing I used feathers and for baboon’s blood I used strawberry jam. As this was about feeling the elements all the participants were blindfolded before the bowls were revealed and the children only saw what they’d been feeling at the end.
The effect was quite something. Even working in small groups the children were
able to terrify themselves (and each other) into overthinking what they were
touching with several children unable to complete the exercise. I had to continually remind the participants to
trust me and not to talk as any discussion could spoil the experience for the
next person.
I recently worked with a school near Chichester who were looking at stories from around the world and what we can learn from them. I found this to be an intriguing and refreshing project. It goes without saying that there are simply thousands of popular myths, legends and folktales. Often they have remained popular because they go some way to explaining something or have a deeper symbolism but this challenge was about considering the moral meaning of tales rather than deciphering their metaphors. Even before Aesop’s time storytelling has provided a mirror to the way we live as audiences have judged the choices of both heroes and villains. As a storyteller I am drawn to colourful, funny, crowd pleasing tales so this brief really got me thinking about my material differently.
Here are the three stories I opted to tell to the children…
As Much as Salt – there are hundreds of versions of the story of the girl banished for comparing her love of her father to her love of salt (Shakespeare uses it in King Lear). It has a beautiful resolution as the girl’s father learns what it is to love and what it is to forgive.
The Proud Turtle – you can’t do a session for a 5 year old and not have some animals doing silly things! This story is one of my favourites. Again there are lots of versions of the tale of the boastful know-it-all who falls from the sky because of a lack of humility. I tend to leave it as the Turtle falls – it’s for the children to decide whether he survives the drop (and whether he deserves it).
Stone Soup –
again lots of people claim this story of how a community make the tastiest
stone soup through sharing. It’s a lot
of fun to get the children to suggest ingredients and act out preparing the
soup and of these three tales has the most obvious message.
Meanwhile I was also asked to present a story set for an event celebrating the achievements of people who had volunteered at their local libraries. Rather than something frothy I wanted my audience to have something a bit more thought provoking but also be suitable for an event celebrating volunteering in libraries. I chose to tell a story about a boy who leaves his village and heads to the big city with nothing except his Mother’s wisdom. In the story as he shares his wisdom he rises from the market place to become an adviser to the King. In this instance when I’d finished I elaborated on the metaphor of shared wisdom; what if the boy had had a library card, could that have helped him to rise from the market to the Royal Palace? What then the importance of the volunteer who listens to a child as they read or discuss their reading? What role does the library play in the journey from their market place to the palace? If you offer this kind of context I think it was an appropriate choice of story.
So what do I take away from the experience of considering the values I extol in the stories that I tell? A good story will entertain but a well-chosen one can offer an insight into who we are and who we might like to be and that can be powerful.
In February 2019 we gave up east London for East Sussex and in doing so I opened a new chapter in my working life. To this point most of the storytelling and workshop work I have been doing has been in my diary since before the big move but now my focus has shifted to trying to get more work in Sussex, Kent, Surrey and Hampshire.
In a couple of weeks time I will be telling Roald Dahl’s “The Twits” in Uckfield, Hastings and Bexhill as I celebrate National Libraries Week with East Sussex Libraries and in National Nursery Rhyme Week I’m thrilled to be returning to Horsham. In between times the enquiries have begun to trickle in from across the South East from schools looking for a storyteller and in the week of World Book Day (5th March 2020) I’ll be visiting Eastbourne (Pevensey), Pulborough and Arundel but it all starts next week with my first school visit of the year in Ardingly where I will be telling 11 children(!) the story of The Three Little Pigs and with an appearance at Reading Rocks! Horsham conference where I will be talking to delegates about storytelling in the classroom. Whilst I am thinking more local I am still excited to be receiving invitations to work all over the country and will be in the North West in November and Yorkshire next March.
In the meantime September has been a quiet month (if you take out Roald Dahl week). I have very much enjoyed reading through stories about fire, diversity and things that go bump in the night for later in the autumn. Now back to finding people south of the M25 to share them with…
At present my approach to birthday party storytelling is to treat each as a bespoke presentation, tailoring my content to suit each occasion rather than the tried and tested packages I offer schools. Birthdays are the ultimate one shot deal because getting it wrong means spoiling a child’s special day. This particular party was one of my biggest challenges yet. As we were outdoors I had no power and I couldn’t rely on having any other kind of amenities (so no water for my water pistols) so everything had to be pre-prepped – if I couldn’t carry it then I couldn’t use it. The party guests were also relatively young. Whilst I have done a lot of work in nurseries and with little children generally this has been in formal settings rather than parks with all their distractions. Getting and then holding the children’s attention would be hard work if my content missed the mark.
The party was inspired by Maudie Smith’s book “Milly and the Mermaids” a story about a young girl who dreams of meeting a mermaid on a trip to the seaside. We began by creating the setting for our session using a beach towel, some golden sparkly fabric for the sand and colourful cut outs of fish, shells, crabs and starfish. We then used what was on the beach to make sandcastle hat bands (pictured). We used tape rather than glue to hold the hats together and glitter pens to decorate them. When I run birthday parties I like to play party games so I ran some parachute games and we used a picnic basket to play parcel the parcel (instead of prizes the children chose objects that led to rhymes and songs). We used a beautiful blue fabric held up by the parents and bubbles to make a sea that the children could swim through and with a little imagination, some rainbow coloured cloth and a wedge shaped leaf grabber I transformed one of the parents into a mermaid for us to meet! It was all very visual, very colourful and very low tech with a real range of things for the children to do.
If you believe (they put a man on the Moon) is a storytelling of a trio of tales including Jonathan Emmett’s Bringing Down the Moon, Simon James’ Boy from Mars and this story by Dom and is touring libraries in the North West, East Midlands, Yorkshire, the North East, London and the South East this July and August. For dates see my event calendar.
At the beginning of June I was invited to tell stories at The Dorothy Clive Garden in Staffordshire. I work regularly all over the country as a storyteller and whilst I have done outdoor storytelling in parks, playgrounds, gardens and woodland for festivals, fetes, birthday parties and events the majority of my storytelling work is in school halls, classrooms and libraries. A lot of my contemporaries run very exciting storytelling sessions in outdoor spaces across the country and whilst there are challenges to telling stories outside when I receive invitations to work in the great outdoors I get romantic notions about audiences eating their picnics under shady trees as I tell tales surrounded by butterflies dancing on borders of summer time flowers and I find it hard to say no. The other thing that appealed to me about the booking was that for this storytelling I would have to write my own set.
In the ten years that I have been working professionally as a storyteller my work has been a mix of adaptations of well-known tales or published works (Roald Dahl, Michael Morpurgo, Jeremy Strong et al), folk and traditional tales. It can be very difficult to get the necessary interest in less popular or less familiar stories to work them up into sessions so to get an opportunity to expand my repertoire and challenge myself to create bespoke materials is a big deal. In the past friends have suggested that I write stories but I am really a storyteller and not an author; in my view we live in a golden age of writing for children and my clients prefer my marquee projects to be written by more established names. It’s far from easy to write for a young audience; it takes time and patience, which with a hectic work schedule and a toddler are things I really don’t have. Saying this a deadline is a wonderful incentive and once I got started I found that there was no shortage of material; there are simply thousands of invertebrates to choose from and as I wasn’t necessarily restricted by scientific accuracy my imagination could wander within a world of creepy crawlies bugs and beetles.
Below is the set that I have come up with; in each instance my beginning point was to think about the characteristics of an insect and then think of a story that insect might suit.
The Bee who wouldn’t share – as I searched the internet for
inspiration I discovered a Brazilian folktale which when told in combination
with one of Aesop’s tales helped me create a story about a hardworking Bee who
when robbed complains to the great Magician for assistance.
The Brave Little Butterfly – this story was inspired by Beauty
and the Beast and Hans Cristian Andersen.
As a splendid butterfly sets out across the meadow to find love he soon learns
that beauty is about more than appearance.
How the Worm lost his clothes – in a recent addition of Storytime Magazine I came across a Serbian version of a Greek tale similar to The Emperor’s New Clothes. Here I use it as the basis for explaining the relationship between the Worm and the Song Thrush.
The Toad and the Centipede – I love Devil Tales in which
Beelzebub is proved to be foolish. Here
I draw inspiration from a Welsh Devil Tale as a clever Ladybird outwits a Toad
who has caught a Centipede.
When
supplemented with a classic Anansi story this set lasts 30-45 minutes.
I will be
reprising this storytelling set on a couple more occasions this summer at outdoor
venues a little closer to my base in Sussex.
They are as follows:
So if you
spot a storyteller telling tales in an English Country Garden this summer why
not stop, share your picnic and listen to a tale? I can’t think of a more blissful way to pass
the time.
On the 8th June 2019 I attended The Society of Storytelling (SfS) Gathering at St Gabriels Church Hall in Walthamstow. The Gathering brings together storytellers of different backgrounds and experiences from all over the country (as the event was in London this year the South East was heavily represented). Whilst the society AGM was a scheduled part of the day it also represents an opportunity for storytellers to discuss the state of storytelling in Britain with talks and workshops lead by society members. I don’t often go to storytelling events. When we moved to Walthamstow in 2013 I started going to Stowtellers, the local storytelling club but in recent years a hectic work schedule and a toddler have made going to events difficult so this year’s Gathering would be some long overdue professional development as well as a chance to catch up with other storytellers.
If this event had been held at the beginning of the year it would have been a 30 minute walk from my house but having moved to East Sussex it was a slightly longer journey which meant I sadly missed Paul Jackson’s opening speech but I was present for Mike Rust’s keynote speech. Mike has been a storyteller for over 30 years and helped to found the Society of Storytellers and The Festival at the Edge in Shropshire. Mike set the tone for the day speaking about the evolving tradition of storytelling and how he feels storytellers can make a real difference to people’s lives and well being.
“The first tottering steps are made by us the rest is for you”.
The first workshop I chose to attend was about legacy. Three 11 year old girls from Eastbury Community School were in attendance to show off their storytelling skills and talk to us about their experiences of storytelling with their teacher and storyteller Merrick Durling. It was wonderful to see three young people communicate a story with such confidence. It was also very impressive and energising to hear them speak about the joy they found in being able to express themselves through storytelling.
“Storytelling isn’t just about reading books, it’s about expressing yourself”
Throughout the day there were chances to chat with other attendees. It was a bit like meeting my Twitter account in the flesh as I got the chance to speak with Wendy Shearer and Hannah Brailsford but I also chatted with Pippa Reid, SfS representative for London, and Tony Cooper, whose book of Kentish folktales is a source of inspiration to me. It was fascinating to hear different views from different parts of the country as a range of topics were discussed from how to work with schools and build audiences, to training, peer support, friends groups and the the value of social media and websites.
“We need to be outward looking and engage everyone”
After lunch came the AGM lead by Paul Jackson reported that SfS was in a good state and the members got to hear how money was being spent on youth and research projects followed by a practical workshop in which exercises encouraging the storyteller to reconsider their story through questioning and quiet reflection.
The day ended with a talk by Andy Copps. Although I have had some correspondence with Andy because of my work with The Roald Dahl Story Company we had never actually met so it was great to hear more about his work and his journey from the world of finance to becoming a storyteller and meet Ralph the Gorilla! What I love about Andy is that you can tell he is passionate about stories and storytelling and that passion is infectious. He had the room enthralled.
As the Gathering moved to a local bar for an evening of stories sadly I broke away and headed home. I found the whole day very thought provoking. At times being a storyteller can be a lonely place but the Gathering demonstrated that there is an active support network and storytelling community out there. I left feeling reenergised and can’t wait for the next time we come together to share our stories of storytelling.
John Kirk is a professional storyteller. For more information or to make a booking fill in a contact form.
As a storyteller I am asked to work not just in a variety of different environments but also with all sorts of different people. Most people come into contact with my storytelling because of my work with children and families in schools and libraries but I do also work with adults. This includes running storytelling sessions for parents aimed at encouraging them to tell stories with their children at home. In the sessions my key points are the importance of talking to children about their family history and identity, the value of telling stories through play and how that play can be enhanced and the long term benefits of nurturing a culture of reading at home. These sessions are popular with parents searching for ideas to stimulate their children or just some reassurance that creating time to bond over a story is worthwhile. When my daughter Verity was born, this storyteller became a Daddy for the first time. As you’d imagine storytelling and performance are part of the culture of our family. Lauren and Verity have supported me at several festivals, we have done a Father-Daughter double act at early years and rhyme time storytelling sessions and earlier this year we reviewed one of our favourite books. Watching Daddy working and unorthodox Daddy day care is undoubtedly a fun way for a toddler to pass the time but as she gets older if we want Verity to remain interested in stories I have to practice what I have been preaching to other parents for years.
Now I am the first person in the world to admit that parenting is really hard. Whilst I might have the stamina to tell a story to an audience of 300 children, one toddler regularly leaves me exhausted. Fortunately for me Lauren has been a super Mum since day one and has always been able to engage quite naturally with Verity. It may seem strange considering my living but I used to find it very hard to talk to my baby. Realising that not talking to her would be detrimental I tried to compensate by singing rhymes and make up songs to fill some of the awkward silences. This one is a family favourite…
To the tune of Beyonce’s
“Single Ladies”
All the stinky babies, all the stinky babies
You put your legs up!
Just done a crappy in your nappy
Daddy’s going to
change it
He’s got some wet wipes and a change mat
All you have to do is lie there.
If you like it then you should have put a nappy on it!
If you like it then you should have put a nappy on it!
Woah woah woah etc…
Fortunately for Verity conversation has become a lot easier as she has got older but this and other silly songs have got me through some very difficult moments.
We recently bought Verity a set of traditional tales including The Three Bears, The Gingerbread Man and The Billy Goats Gruff. If you have read any of my previous blogs you’ll know that Verity watches as much (if not more) TV as any toddler but books don’t read themselves and since introducing these stories they have become firm favourites. I am a self employed storyteller and I know that if I am left in sole charge of my daughter I am easily distracted with checking e-mails and taking phone calls but since purchasing this set of books John the storyteller has been unable to resist the opportunity to bake Gingerbread Men and whenever we go on a walk and there’s a bridge we’ll pretend to be either the Billy Goats trip trapping over or the Troll lurking under it. The other day the audience turned instigator as Verity suggested we make some Porridge for her Teddies. It was a light bulb moment. Soon we had three bears eating from three bowls of porridge, three chairs and three little beds set up in Verity’s bedroom. An hour on a wet day flew by as we read and reread the story of The Three Bears with Verity and her dolly taking turns at being Goldilocks.
“I just wanted to say a huge thank you for yesterday! The children thoroughly enjoyed it and have already asked me to read the Twits to them! It was great to see how passionate and engaging you were with the children. You are brilliant at what you do”.
[Teacher, Derby, May 2019]
You can imagine how I felt when I read this; storytellers will tell you that it’s exactly this sort of comment which helps you get out of bed in the morning. It also got me thinking (not for the first time) about what John Kirk the storyteller does. I often say with absolute confidence that I am one of the best in the country at what I do but then that’s because storyteller can be a catch-all term; we may be tagged the same way but we all have our different ways of doing things. Here’s a little more about mine…
I introduce children to new stories.
My storytelling work has taken me the length and breadth of the country. Sometimes I tell stories the children have an awareness of already; Roald Dahl’s The Twits and The Enormous Crocodile are always popular and when I tell The Gingerbread Man and The Three Little Pigs it can be hard to tell who is the storyteller as some children will say the words before I do! I am also a storyteller of less well known tales; traditional tales from other parts of the world which I have adapted for school audiences which not only demonstrate the best and worst of people but shine a light on a way of life.
I get children excited about stories.
I have a theatrical background and therefore my style as a storyteller is to use my body and voices to make my stories more dynamic. I use small props, hats and wigs to enhance the storytelling experience and my use of water pistols and audience participation combined with a high energy delivery can leave young audiences positively buzzing.
I encourage listening and participation.
I am a versatile storyteller and some of the stories can be quite dark or serious. I have told Nigel Auchterlounie’s Dennis and the Chamber of Mischief but I have also told Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful. Some of my stories are very short but my longest sessions can go on for 75 minutes particularly if the children are into what we are doing. The storyteller’s skill is choosing great published material (Roald Dahl, Jeremy Strong) which will hold a child’s attention or curating a session of stories with an audience in mind (a very young child will tolerate a serious story if it is in a trio of tales with something very physical or very silly).
I boost confidence and attainment.
I rarely tell stories on my own and often invite the children to become storytellers and volunteer in my sessions. Whilst this could be holding up a piece of paper, wearing a silly wig or getting sprayed with a water pistol it is an opportunity for them to be in front of an audience in a safe, fun environment where I can support them to participate positively in the storytelling experience. In schools I rarely choose my own volunteers. Teachers often pick children to participate who will take something from being involved – maybe they’re the quiet ones or the hard to engage ones or maybe they are the ones who struggle in conventional lessons – whatever the reasoning I try to make it positive, memorable and fun.
I inspire children to read and to create their own stories.
At the end of a session or when I read through feedback on a day
of storytelling, it is not unusual for a teacher to say or write something like
“that child wouldn’t normally do that” or “they have done some brilliant
writing since meeting you” or for a child to say “can you come again tomorrow?”. I enjoy storytelling but this sort of comment
is very satisfying.
School children regularly ask me what inspires me to be a
storyteller. My answer is quite simple;
as a storyteller there is nothing more inspiring than seeing the faces of the
audience, watching them participate and hearing the chatter after a successful
session. It’s flattering to think that I
can be brilliant at what I do but if I am consistently achieving excellence it’s
because my audiences are brilliant too.
When I did my round up of my mad March I said that I’d write in more detail about my experience working in St Albans and about using open resources in telling stories.
A few years ago I worked at a Primary School in Hemel
Hempstead. I’ll be honest and say that I
could only vaguely remember the school but I did remember the teacher who
booked me and fortunately they remembered me when they changed jobs. So it was that I was invited to work with an
EYFS/foundation group not far from St Albans but this wouldn’t be a routine
booking. I was given the brief that I
could only use open resources to tell the stories.
My immediate question was what is an open resource? Well, an open resource is something that could be used for anything. There is a popular drama game in which an object is passed around the circle and the participants explain its function. The only thing it can’t be is what it actually is. There are some objects that this is pretty difficult to do this with but there are others that allow the participant to use their imaginations; an empty plastic bottle can easily be imagined to be a telephone, a magnifying glass or a pneumatic drill, its far trickier to do this with a branded toy like a remote control car (although the remote control would probably be a lot of fun!). Before arriving I was given a list of stories and a photograph of piles of coloured fabric, egg boxes, colanders, pine cones and lollipop sticks.
As a storyteller I am used to using my imagination to turn an object into something else for the benefit of the audience. When I tell folk tales I often use gloves to represent birds and fabric to represent mountains, the sea or even blood. In Roald Dahl’s The Twits and The Enormous Crocodile a walking stick becomes a rifle and oven gloves become crocodiles and coconut trees. When I told Jeremy Strong’s The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog I used a dog lead as a tongue, a steering wheel, a rope and well, a dog lead. Sometimes these ideas come about because I am on a budget, sometimes its because I’m looking for ways to encourage participation and sometimes because I want to encourage repetition – teachers often tell me that their children have demonstrated the ideas they have seen in a story at their playtimes. In every case the simplest idea is often the best.
So it was that I visited a nursery without any props or
costumes. I introduced myself and my
work before immediately apologising to the children for “forgetting” my work
bag. I asked if they could help me tell
the stories using the resources provided by the setting. Then working in a side room with a small
group at a time the children were given a few moments to explore the resources
before we told The Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Pigs. I started each story the same way, by using
some of the resources to build a map.
Just to make my task slightly more risky I invited the children to
decide on the use of certain resources – Can you choose something to show a
river? Can you make a rickety rackety
bridge? – we used pine cones and lollipop sticks and some rudimentary puppetry
ideas to create the billy goats and yoghurt pots to create the pigs. Working on the fly was very liberating and it
was wonderful to incorporate the children’s ideas about things like the
appearance of the troll into the storytelling.
The whole experience may have been low budget but it was a huge amount
of fun. Here is the feedback from the
nursery:
Having seen your work before, I knew that you were a great storyteller, however, it is always a little worrying when you recommend someone to a new school. I need not have worried because you blew both children and staff away with your stories and wonderful energy and enthusiasm. You were able to engage all the children and included them all, even those that were hesitant at first.
You were not at all phased when I asked you to tell the stories in a different way, using open ended resources (junk) and in fact, embraced the new challenge enthusiastically. You delivered a session, specifically tailored to the needs of our children and they responded beautifully. I loved the way that you gave them the freedom to choose their own resources and add their own ideas, this built their confidence and this was reflected in their own storytelling play after the session.
Many parents have also approached me and told me that the children could not stop talking about you at home, so, I am sure, that the children would love to work with you again too.
Over the years I have received feedback suggesting I use
more hats, more props and more costumes despite the fact I have packed an
entire wardrobe into my session (I used to use a rubber glove tied to an alice
band in Jack and the Beanstalk; recently used 35 hats to tell The Enormous
Turnip!). Some settings have cupboards
full of story bags, dressing up rails and hand puppet sets for their children
to tell stories. Whilst this is
brilliant and I appreciate that younger audiences require more resources I also
wonder if in enhancing a child’s play with accessories we are sometimes overly
prescriptive about how to play and may inadvertently be stifling some
children’s imaginations and ability to create.
As I led these sessions I could see that the children got a lot from the
experience of stripping things back and I hope to be able to offer similar
sessions in the future.
