By Vicky Ellis

Only the promise of exemplary storytelling could have brought the brave souls out of their paper houses through the horizontal rain, and into the Storey building on 17^th October. Superlative storyteller Dominic Kelly welcomed an audience from across the North West to the first Litfest 2011 story night, a double bill featuring Tim Ralphs and Jo Blake.

Scrambling out from beneath the curtains, Tim’s offbeat humour was immediately apparent. He set the audience at ease with his confident delivery and is certainly no stranger to character acting. Sporting a torch strapped to his head and gripping a black bin bag he took us on a train journey through snow-capped Yorkshire.

Tim effortlessly slid between interaction and narrative in a set which was performed flawlessly. There were plenty of laughs to be had and the set pieces were skilfully wrought. The stories were tied together by use of objects, plucked from the aforementioned bin bag by audience members, which meant that the audience was denied the satisfaction of circularity in the narrative. Each of the stories was strong enough individually, however, to withstand the lack of a larger theme and the set was sold as “a set of stories randomly curated from the contents of a Sheffield skip”.

A feat of binary storytelling was the spectacle of the set, for me. Tim easily slipped between a pair of well-known stories, creating a mixture of Greek mythology and eighties campfire horror which was a delight to observe. He tackled the grisly endings with a particular glee. A charismatic entertainer, Tim is also an intelligent storyteller. He has the ability to turn a room full of adults into a classroom of children, each holding their hand high squealing “Pick me!” as he walks among them, shaking his bin bag with a grin.

In contrast to Tim’s ebullient style, Jo Blake presented a set which was a thing of elegant and daring beauty. Her style was more reserved, though no less confident, and she engaged the audience with a wry humour which depended on her acute observational skills and exemplary use of descriptive prose. Revealing to the audience a picturesque landscape of her native Northampton, Jo then set us on a journey across Baghdad, Africa and 18^th Century England.

Incorporating snippets of poetry, traditional song and quotes from Alan Moore, Jo successfully introduced the audience to a multitude of well-crafted characters. What came across strongly was Jo’s sense of the poetic and her love of the story form. The stories were awash with symbolism, repetition was used to full effect and thoughtful, figurative language was used sparingly. Jo’s brave use of technology did let her down when the multi-track recorder lost power temporarily. This had the effect of losing the audience for a short time. The nature of the set involved utilising a variety of forms to bind the stories and the consequence of this was a certain distance from the audience which might not have been present in a more traditional set. I asked my 13 year old daughter how she felt about this and her response was positive. In her (paraphrased) opinion, the variety of form outshone any temporary distance between teller and audience.

Circularity was a little late in coming to Jo’s set, but when it arrived it was present in abundance. The summary was incredibly satisfying and I found the sentiments behind the piece as a whole uplifting and memorable. If Tim brought ‘the odd’ into the theatre with him, Jo framed her imaginative worlds exquisitely, allowing the audience to peek into a chain of realities from a place of assured safety. Her delivery was confident and welcoming with a knowing smile.

Storytelling at Litfest continues with Hugh Lupton and Nick Hennessey on Friday 21^st October. The wind may be building but it would take more than a grumpy north-westerly to keep the crowds at bay.

Vicky Ellis is a poet and novelist from Blackpool. She has is a member of the Blackpool Dead Good Poets’ Society and is a regular blogger on their Dead Good Blog. She is currently working on two storytelling projects due for completion next year alongside praying to any god with ears for funding towards her MA.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 20th, 2011 at 11:03 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.