10th November: Chip describes his project launch
Graham arrived at my flat shortly after ten one Thursday morning. Undoubtedly the tallest man I have ever invited in, his voice was strong, despite his cold; his stride was wide and he stepped right into business, with as many pleasantries as a headmaster in the caning room. But this was not because he was taking command; nor was it because he was rude. It was because he was here to talk about his passion.
We launched into planning the workshops: one series in Great Wilbraham Primary School and another set in Chesterton Community College. We’d been told we’d only get about four workshops this side of Christmas. I’d suggested that we opt, therefore, to do a programme of five, and in the last one in January we ask the children whether it’s worth doing another five. Great Wilbraham had opted for this model too, since it fit neatly into their calendar as well. Graham’s hair looked as if it had been hit with a truckload of Daz when I told him this, but he quickly got us knuckled down into working out how to get 20-odd young people into confident storytellers within, effectively, four weeks.
Graham really got us thinking about our practice. For instance Amy would say, “Let’s start with warm-ups,” and Graham would reply, “Why start with warm-ups? Why waste time on them? Isn’t it more important that they get a good grasp of story? Do you really want to go down the acting route anyway?” Graham even looked at our publicity material and wondered aloud, “So storytelling is just one of the things you do, right?” We were left wondering whether we were actually storytellers.. After all, take a look at our website: www.snailtales.org. We often employ puppets, ventriloquism, music, magic and pantomime to tell our stories, a lot of which are outside of the folk arena (eg Greek myths, true stories of local heroes, and even some stories of our own creation). Perhaps storytelling was actually a subsidiary talent. But our discussion that morning covered much more than that. We ended with Graham discussing style, and how the diversity of storytelling is part of what makes deciding the Young Storyteller of the Year so difficult. And I began to realise what he was doing.
But we had more work to do. We had to pay our flying visits to each school, in which Graham would perform to encourage children to sign up. The plan was simple: he would tell a few stories, we would watch, and he would introduce us at the end. Personally I was torn between jealousy that he was going to get to have all the fun, and curiosity as to how good he would be.
Great Wilbraham was first – a group of year 5s. Graham told two esoteric folk tales, followed by a sung ballad of a well-known fairy tale. And it was bloody brilliant. Sure, the concentration of the children would wander from time to time – but it always came back, through refrain, sound effects, audience interaction, and sudden moments of high tension. There were some children who would easily have sat and listened to more than the 45 minutes, which both Amy and I had both considered to be an awfully long time for a child to remain attentive.
Graham worked up the images using words, voice, gesture, and questioning – nothing that Amy and I hadn’t already used. And the more I watched, the more I realised that we did this an awful lot – much more than anything else. The difference was that we would usually break it up with a puppet sketch or a magic trick. We did that because of our fear that storytelling alone would be boring. Sitting there watching Graham reminded me just how enjoyable a good story could be, even after another good story. It restored my confidence in storytelling as an artform in its own right. How could we have ever doubted our ability to do this?
The next school, Chesterton College, was going to be a tougher audience. On the one hand, almost 20 had already signed up without even seeing our Thursday presentation; another 20 were on the waiting list. But nearly all of them were mainly into drama. When your idea of a good time is becoming a character and living a scene, why would you be interested in an art that involves no script, no props, and very little showing?
Halfway through Graham’s storytelling here, it became apparent that Graham’s previous “tell don’t show” mantra had a hidden message between the lines: when you tell, the mind of the listener begins the showing. I could see that the audience were not just listening; they were imagining. And some of them were cottoning on to the power that Graham had over them – half of those were slightly scared by it, as it was like nothing they’d experienced before; others were already excited by the prospect of getting up to wield that power themselves. At the end of the presentation, recognisable awe showed in all their faces at the journey they had just enjoyed.
As Graham drove off, Amy and I realised we had been on an important journey too. Graham had taught us, overall, that we WERE storytellers. He had made us constantly question our reasons for everything, and make sure we were always striving towards telling a good story. We realized that slipping into a character has its place. As does music. Even as do props, to liven up stories for very young audiences. But storytelling isn’t a part of what we do; it IS what we do. It’s the other skills that are the subsidiaries. Deep down, we’d always known this. Thanks to the combination of our discussions with Graham, and seeing him in performance, we had reminded ourselves of it. And so now we are very much looking forward to beginning our workshops this Monday.
