For the sold-out first outing of our “Sinister Stories” set, we took to the woods in pop-up venue in the woods at Fort Victoria Country Park…
Thanks to everyone who braved it into the woods…
If you have any photos or videos from the event, please share them with our tistales Facebook page, tag them via @TisTales_IW Twitter account, or email them to mediashare@tistales.org.uk …
Taking a step out into the woods, our next ‘Tis Tales performance is a seasonal outing of sinister stories and chilling tales, at Fort Victoria on Friday, October 28th, 2022, 7pm-8.30pm (subject to weather…).
An atmospheric evening of chilling traditional tales.
The evening will start in the car park at Fort Victoria, where the tale tellers will meet you before guiding you to a clearing in the woods. There we will settle in for an evening of stories about Death and the Devil, spectres and ghouls, close calls and unfortunate ends.
The tales are chilling, but we don’t have to be! Dress for the weather, bring a hot flask and a chair, blanket or cushion to keep the chilblains at bay.
Suitable for ages 11+. In the event of extreme weather you will be contacted and the event will be rearranged to a later date.
Retrospectively posted, but it’s all about keeping track of the stories and lies…
Taking a step away from a troupe performance, Holly, Monty and Sue and all made individual appearances at the Sandown Hullabaloo science, art and community festival over the weekend.
Featuring early morning breakfast tales, animal tales, and tales of wonder, the three ‘Tis Tales tellers provided tales for all ages at this fantastic island event.
On Monday, October 17th, 2022, 7.30-9.30pm, the Island Storytellers storytelling circle are promoting a special event at the Ventnor Arts Club, a one-night only performance event by singer and teller of the tallest of tales, Keith Donnelly.
The Island Storytellers meet once a month or so, typically on the third Tuesday of the month, typically in a pub somewhere on the Island, for an informal hour or two of round table storytelling. Tellers new and old, as well as listeners old and new, are always most welcome. Check out the Island Storytellers Facebook group, or the Island Storytellers page here on the `Tis Tales website, for regular updates about where the group is meeting next…
If your haven’t bought your tickets for our “Island Tales” performance this weekend at Medina Bookshop in Cowes, as part of the Isle of Wight Literary Festival, 2022, the tickets have now sold out.
We are hoping to announce some dates for a couple of new performances in the near future, so make sure you keep checking back here for updates.
If you would like to book ‘Tis Tales for a storytelling performance, please get in touch via bookings@tistales.org.uk
We’re pleased to announce that ‘Tis Tales will be performing at the Medina Bookshop, Cowes, on Saturday, October 8th, 2022, 7.30pm-8.30pm, as part of the Isle of Wight Literary Festival, with another outing of our Island Tales set.
We may not have books to sell, but we certainly have tales to tell…
If you ever pass by the village of Cranborne in Dorset, make sure to pay a visit to the Ancient Technology Centre, an outdoor living history centre with recreations of several ancient buildings, including an iron age roundhouse, a Viking Longhouse (eat your heart out, other museum cafés!), and a spectacular recreation of an iron age Earthouse.
The earthouse itself provides a 250 seat capacity in-the-round indoor theatre (although you might want to take a cushion to sit on).
The venue is regularly used by the Crick-Crack Club for storytelling performances. This week, it hosted a performance by Pandvani 108, a performance storytelling telling troupe combining stories, music, and movement/dance in the retelling of ancient myths and legends. The current line-up included tales by Emily Hennessey, Ben Haggerty, and island-based Steph Brittain, with musical accompaniment in the form of sitar and drums, by Sheema Mukherjee & Rav Neiyyer.
The troupe’s name is based on an Indian storytelling performance genre, Pandvani (Pandavani) that also drives the ‘epic shorts” performance style: a series of movement rich, 15 minute tales based on traditional myths, accompanied by music, performed by the storyteller (the “teller”) but in partial dialogue with another (a “Ragi”), who adds interjections that variously acknowledge, drive, clarify and even mock the teller.
The 150 minute set (two one-hour long sets with a twenty minute interval, with 3 main stories, one per performer, each set) was a completely new style of performance to me, but a great fit for the Earthouse (also a first visit for me). If you ever get a chance to see Pandvani 108 — particularly if we can find a venue on the Island that would suit such a performance — I encourage you to take it.
Tellers at Oxford included Shonaleigh, Jan Blake, Emily Hennessy & Sheema Mukhurjee, Nick Hennessey, Tom Hirons, Riika Palonen, Lisa Schneidau, and David Heathfield. Shonaleigh also featured at East Anglia, along with other half Simon Heywood, Clare Murphy, Xanthe Gresham, Dave Tonge, Taffy Thomas, and more…
From the ‘Tis Tales camp, Monty took a trip (as a punter and story-round teller on the final night) to the Oxford event at Waterperry Gardens, in search not just of telling tips and new tales to tell, but also ideas we might be able to bring back to the island in terms of performance spaces and event programming.
The venue was split between two indoor venues and several outdoor venues.
The headline venue was an amphiteatre…
Do we have a venue like that anywhere on the Island?
The outdoor tented venues were in a single grassed area, along with stalls, a food stand and a bar, and came in a variety of styles: a large tipi, a smaller event shelter, and a small but beautifully decorated tented venue.
Viewed from the side, The Little Tent of Wonders showed what could be achieved with some imagination (note the floor was actually carpeted and cushioned over plastic sheet).
There was also a fire pit, with fire point, and a pond…
The small camping field was just a couple of minutes walk away, on the flat, with an adjacent car parking field. The only quibble, perhaps, was that there were no guiding lights (simple solar charged ones would have been fine) to signal the gateway out of the field, so with a moonless night, torches were advisable.
I’m not sure how well the outside venues would have worked with larger numbers, or inclement weather, but for the event as it was over the weekend, it all seemed to work really well.
A couple of weeks ago, on a trip to see the roundy-roundy BTCC racing touring cars at Snetterton in Norfolk, I (Monty) took a slight detour via Swaffham in search of remnants of the traditional tale The Pedlar of Swaffham (as for example collected by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairy Tales [notes]).
In the Church there, you can find carvings of the pedlar and his dog.
The pew ends also have various other carvings, which makes me wonder whether there are stories attached to those as well…
One thing I’m rather regretting is not asking anyone from the Church, or elsewhere in the town, to tell me the story of the pedlar as they know it. It may well be there is some further localisation or elaboration of it. (Hopefully next time….!)
It also made me wonder about what statues or carvings in Isle of Wight churches might have interesting tales attached to the them. Suggestions, anyone?! Please let me know via the comments, or otherwise…
Thanks to Ventnor Arts Club, and a great audience, at our Ventnor Fringe performance of “Island Tales”: it was a fantastic venue for a storytelling event — our first in a theatrical setting — and it’d be great to see more storytelling events there.
Huge thanks, too, to the folk at Ventnor Exchange for all they do organising the Ventnor Fringe each year. If you haven’t made it to any events yet, there’s still dozens of events, both ticketed and free, upcoming: https://vfringe.co.uk/
