Mark P. Henderson

National Storytelling Week looms closer!

The first week of February (Saturday 1st to Saturday 8th) is National Storytelling Week in the UK so there’ll be more storytelling activity during that week – and before it. And after it, I expect.

This coming Thursday morning (Jan 23rd) I’m going to be performing about fifty minutes’ worth of local folktales to our local University of the Third Age in Glossop. This is performance-type rather than fireside-chat-type storytelling – U3A meetings take place in the biggest room in Bradbury House and there’ll be 70-80 in the audience, with me on a little stage in front of them holding a microphone. I’ll mix a few amusing tales such as The Grey Mare with some sadder ones (Sermon for the Dead) and add a spooky fairy-tale or two (The Riddle is a good example), and I’ve turned a few of my photos into slides to illustrate the stories. After the session I must rush upstairs to join the creative writing group, the AGM of which will almost certainly be finished by then, with yr obdt svt likely to have been appointed secretary for the coming year. One must do one’s bit, you know.

On the following evening (24th) we’ll have our bimonthly Glossop Storytelling Group session. In the interests of indolence I’ll probably repeat one of the tales I’ll have told the previous morning. Then, when we get into Storytelling Week proper, I’ll be performing with the Buxton group (a session has been booked at the Green Man in Buxton, 7.30-9.30 p.m. on Sunday 2nd), attending the Matlock Storytelling Cafe at the usual venue on the 7th, and taking part in a storytelling workshop on the 8th. What a mad whirl it all is.

Meanwhile, the drama (now entitled The Riddle of the Stone) is taking more and more shape. We tried another read-through last Wednesday and discussed amendments, which I’ve now made. On Tuesday coming we’re going to run through it again, this time paying attention to staging, lighting, music, etc.  Writing for the theatre has proved an interesting challenge – something different, outside my comfort zone – and I might try more of it!