Tag Archives: Private Peaceful

Which stories shaped you?

I live in London.  I went to drama college there have a family there and love its bright lights and history.  I wasn’t raised in London though.  I am from Lancashire and it’s there that my cultural vocabulary was shaped.  It was in the north west that I was inspired to set out on a creative journey which means that when I head north these days I have a small rucksack for my clothes and two suitcases of props, wigs and hats (this week I have been working in libraries and schools in Chorley, Blackburn and Huddersfield).

It was recently pointed out that I have been living outside the north west for longer than it was ever my home.  Still my affection for north grows with every visit.  I am always struck by the friendliness of the people, the beauty of the landscape, the changes and developments in places like Manchester and Liverpool and, as a working storyteller, the wonderful folklore.

In this blog I wanted to reflect not on my favourite stories but on the stories and the moments that have shaped my creative journey from Chorley to London and back again.  Some of the moments I’ll describe weren’t witnessed by many or indeed any people but they are nonetheless significant to me.  Saying this the more I think the more I think I’ve done a lot of stuff and if I were to repeat this exercise next week my list might be entirely different.  I set out to shortlist 5 moments but have settled with six (its my blog and I’ll cry if I want to).  I am going to bypass the various stories I told as an actor and the various books I have read which helped form my views and character and focus on the stories that saw me to where I am today (although To Kill a Mockingbird, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Cooking with Elvis and We need to talk about Kevin all might have been mentioned)

1. The Hobbit – my Dad, my bedroom.  Some of my fondest memories are sitting on my bed with my Dad reading us stories.  Hearing stories like the Hobbit really enlivened my imagination and left me with a lifelong love of fantasy worlds.

2. The Suicide – Bolton Octagon.  I must have been in my mid teens when we went to The Bolton Octagon to see Nicolai Erdman’s The Suicide.  The entire experience blew me away.  The Octagon is an incredible space and the play was like nothing I had ever seen before (although having seen it again recently at the National perhaps it was the stage design rather than the story that truly grabbed me).  By this stage I wasn’t reading a lot on my own so it was at the theatre that I was exposed to stories.

3. History GCSE school.  The way I have always viewed history, rightly or wrongly, is as an enormous story.  Like any good story if you like it you remember it and I loved hearing about the Great War.  Like any story though a good storyteller makes all the difference and our history teacher was very good at telling the story of the war.  When I first started writing history workshops it was these lessons which I thought about.  To date it’s this inspiration that has seen me write history workshops for several of London’s local heritage museums.

4. Of Mice and Men – Chorley Little Theatre.  Whilst at sixth form college I got to know Hywel Evans.  Hywel is phenomenon.  He has had a massive bearing on my life – I probably wouldn’t have gone to Drama College if it hadn’t been for him.  He was and still is a creative dynamo and has gone on to be successful in everything he has chosen to do.  Together with Ben Hilton we established Low Fat Productions and put on shows for money including Of Mice and Men.  We got the local theatre and people paid to come and see us.  I remember that I was supposed to be the producer but I was completely hopeless at it.  The experience of working with Hywel and Ben taught me that sometimes to be creative you had to be proactive and if you are proactive enough you could make money.  When I think back about what we did as 16 and 17 year olds I find it incredible.

5. Solo story – Rose Bruford College.  During the Brecht term at college we were divided into groups and prepared plays by Bertolt Brecht for in-house presentation.  Our group were doing St Joan of the Stockyards (which looking back was probably the high point of my entire acting career) but at the same time we had other classes; voice, movement and a thing called solo story.  The idea of solo story was to tell a story to an audience.  It was a massive challenge because to this point we had always worked on ensemble pieces of theatre.  We were essentially left to our own devices as we developed a script and made up a short presentation of a story.  I told a story about watching my beloved Wimbledon Football Club play an FA Cup tie at Old Trafford.  It was probably the first time I had ever told a story solo in front of an audience.  It was nerve wracking but some of the techniques I used in that project I still use to this day.

6. The Unlucky Mummy – all over the place.  In 2012 I was approached about delivering a story in a museum setting about Egypt and when I found the legend of the Unlucky Mummy the project turned out to be a gift.  I created an interactive slapstick piece which could be enjoyed by family audiences.  After the initial delivery I offered it for free to the libraries in north east London.  Impressed by what they saw I was invited back to do Dracula and recommended to the CityRead 2014 for Private Peaceful.  One thing lead to another and The Twits, #Shakespeare400 and The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog have followed it all started though with a newspaper mummy wrapped in toilet roll in a spray painted show box.

So you see you can take the boy out of Lancashire but the north runs in his blood.  I hope that as Verity grows up I’ll be able to share some of the best bits of the north of england with her so whilst she maybe a Londoner her father’s roots will be part of her identity too.

A Guide to Guidance: how can you be sure a story is suitable?

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.Whenever I take a booking or ask for feedback on my work, suitability is mentioned.  For each of my stories I have suggested the age or level the audience should be at in order to watch it.  You did read that correctly, I said suggested.

Most recently I have been presenting “Private Peaceful” as part of the Cityread 2014.  My brief was to work with young readers in public spaces (lots of libraries!).  Michael Morpurgo’s story is quite rightly, not pitched at younger young readers but I know from experience of working in public spaces to expect very young audiences.  I therefore devised a piece which could be accessible to an audience of young people aged 7 plus.  This was challenging as I did not want to compromise the language or the tone of the original in my work.  In my interpretation I remove elements of the story which are too disturbing for a young audience or too difficult to do justice in a 40 minute presentation (the shooting of Bertha, Molly and the baby).  Similarly, I say that my version of “A Christmas Carol” can be enjoyed by audiences of young people aged 4 plus.  I don’t deviate from Dickens’ story or his language and in places my ghost story can be scary but I include elements of slapstick, pantomime and colourful, comic characters to entertain the very youngest audience members.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.The truth is that when I say a piece is suitable for a particular age or level I am making a broad statement.  If I am liaising with a school directly it is much easier to advise them on a story to choose for their children.  Here my statement on suitability is definitely “this story is suitable for a person of the stated age or level”.  When I work In public environments I have less control over who will be watching.  I can put a statement of suitability on my literature or speak to the audience briefly before the presentation begins but my statement is more ambiguous, “a person of this age or level can access this story in some way”.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be like this but in the end I don’t know the audience who will watch my work.  When I work in schools, a child who is particularly sensitive will respond to my work differently compared to one who is bomb proof.  During the school holidays a parent will not be able to leave one child in order to monitor their sibling so I often present stories I deem inappropriate to very young children.  Saying this, I have had two year olds howling with laughter at Dracula because of my presentation style and teenagers who have disrupted my stories because they weren’t prepared to engage with my work.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.There are risks when booking or attending stories for children but many pitfalls can be avoided with insight into the work.  Just because it says its suitable for a seven year old doesn’t mean its not Michael Morpurgo.  Just because it says its suitable for four year olds doesn’t mean that its not Charles Dickens.  A statement of suitability is to say you can rather than you should watch.  It is for adults to exercise their discretion in choosing an appropriate story for their audience.

“Saluting” my CityRead 2014…

Here is the story of my CityRead2014 in pictures.  The saluting came about when the group piled into the photograph at New X Learning.  It became a trend that would be repeated across London.

I started in Lewisham…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

and was next in Wandsworth.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

April rolled in with presentations in Barking and Dagenham…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

and Islington.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

As the Easter Holidays began the dates came thick and fast with presentations in The City of London…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

Waltham Forest…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

and Ealing.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

I did nine presentations in Croydon…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

eight in Haringey…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

with days in Merton…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

and Camden too – Phew!

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

When the schools went back we pressed on with huge crowds in Lambeth…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

Redbridge…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

and Brent.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

Not forgetting Hackney…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

Westminster…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

Kensington and Chelsea …

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

and Hammersmith and Fulham.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

As April ended I went to Bexley …

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

and Bromley to work with secondary school groups.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

My CityRead 2014 finished with May visits to Richmond Upon Thames…

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

… and Kingston Upon Thames.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

65 presentations in 27 days across 23 different London authorities to 2300 people.

My CityRead 2014 was incredible.