Skip to content

Our first benefit evening at the Crypt, Clerkenwell

Posted by David Hepworth on Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Tony McGowan, Angela Clerkin, Paul Moriarty, Kerry Shale, Deborah Levy, Barb Jungr and Shaun Attwood.

The Crypt at Clerkenwell Green was the venue for our first big event last night. 240 paying customers poured in to the cellar beneath the church to be entertained by six of our favourite turns, all of whom gave their services free to benefit the True Stories Told Live project.

Deborah Levy reprised her story about the laxative properties of syrups in coffee and explained why you should always follow anyone delivering refrigerated blood. Deborah’s new book, Swimming Home, is published by And Other Stories. Shaun Attwood talked about his horrifying time in America’s nastiest jail. The fact that he manages to remain so genial after such experiences is genuinely amazing, You can contact Shaun and buy his book Hard Time here.  Our musical turn was Barb Jungr who described the time she went into a cafe in north Wales with a seagull under her arm.  She also sang Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”. Barb Jungr’s site contains tour dates and details of her latest record, The Man In The Long Black Coat. Paul Moriarty is the head of a south London junior school who recalled the snooker hall culture of his youth. Author Tony McGowan recounted an episode from his youth in Leeds when he was responsible for the death of a dog. Details of Tony McGowan work can be found here.  Angela Clerkin finished the evening with her account of underhand dealing in the children’s section of the Irish Traditional Dancing world. To contact Angela Clerkin go here.

Thanks to everyone who came and lent their support. We really appreciate it. The wine was provided by Dragan Aleksic of Aleksic & Mortimer. Thanks to The Compass who are treating our turns to dinner. Muir Vidler took the pictures. Gill Pyrah won the “golden ticket” which means she is guaranteed to get in to the next season with a guest, starting in September.

Happy holidays from the True Stories Told Live team.

Comments (3)

Sold out at the Crypt

Posted by David Hepworth on Friday, July 1, 2011

We’ve now sold out for our special show next Tuesday, July 5th at The Crypt. Thanks to everyone who supported us and we  look forward to seeing you there.

In case you haven’t seen it, there’s a very nice piece all about True Stories Told Live in this week’s issue of Time Out, the one with Take That on the cover.

After the Crypt show we take the summer months off but will be back with True Stories at The Compass in mid-September.

 

Comments (1)

Enjoy a memorable evening with some of our favourite turns at True Stories on July 5th – and help us raise some funds at the same time

Posted by David Hepworth on Thursday, June 16, 2011

On July 5th at the Crypt in Clerkenwell we present the first ever True Stories Told Live Benefit evening. This is an opportunity for people who’ve come along over the last couple of years and said “you should charge for this” to buy tickets for a special one-off show – and bring your friends – without worrying about the guest list.

Six of the many storytellers we’ve loved will be coming back to tell stories on July 5th in an event that will be slightly longer than our regular monthly meet-ups. The Crypt is a lovely, atmospheric space beneath the historic St James’s Church in Clerkenwell, five minutes walk from Farringdon Tube station. Doors open to ticketholders at 6.45, we’ll start at 7.30, there will be an interval midway and the evening will finish at 9.30.

Tickets for this event cost just £22, which includes wine and beer. The proceeds from this evening will go towards improving our website, paying our running costs and enabling us to investigate opportunities to take what we’ve learned about story-telling into other areas. This is a chance for people who’ve supported our events in the past to put a little back and also for those who’ve been unable to get on our guest list to get some of the True Stories Told Live experience.

The Crypt has a capacity of 200 so you need to purchase your tickets with credit card now by clicking here. As soon as your booking is accepted you’ll get a booking reference which is all you’ll need on the night.

BOOK NOW! It’s (another) amazing evening. (Only this time, with drinks included.)

Comments (0)

Washday in London, stalkers in Texas and surgery in Bangkok: another night of True Stories at the Compass

Posted by David Hepworth on Thursday, June 16, 2011

It wouldn’t be right to give away too much about the story with which Marina Cantacuzino (right) began last night’s True Stories because if things had gone differently and we’d been looking the other way it’s the kind of thing that could have happened to any of us on the average wash day. The ripple that went through the upper room at the Compass about four minutes in to the story as it dawned on the audience what an everyday calamity had just occurred was a very special True Stories moment. Guarantee everyone who was there will have told at least one person that story.

John Dickie is the author of Blood Brotherhoods: The Rise Of The Italian Mafia, an organisation which, as he explained, is like the Freemasons but for murderers. His story was set in the strange surroundings of the national archive in Rome where his researches began with the discovery of a handkerchief which had once been wrapped around some bloody human cargo.

Our musical turn Krysten Cummings has distinguished herself on stage both in London and on Broadway in such musicals as Rent and Company. She didn’t overdo the storytelling part of her turn and launched pretty quickly into Would You Leave Me, one of the first songs she wrote when she first came to London from her native America.

Meg Rosoff was taking care of MC duties while Kerry Shale was sunning himself in foreign parts and she began the second half by talking about how she had first come to True Stories and been inspired by the way people used storytelling as a means of people taking hold of their own lives and making some sort of sense of them.

Rebecca Shaeffer is an American who worked in film publicity before taking up the law and working with Fair Trials International. She told an enthralling story about the time she was living in Houston, Texas in a Catholic commune and had not one but two encounters with a homeless man who was filming UFOs while also, it turned out, stalking Beyonce Knowles.

Finally Richard Strange, who cannot be summed up in a line, told a story about how he fell over and banged his head in Phnom Penh and had to be flown out of the country to get treatment. He woke up in a Thai hospital to find he’d been worked over by a sawbones with an apparently wicked sense of humour.

Thanks to everyone who came. If you enjoyed it and would like to see True Stories spread and grow, please support our benefit evening at the Crypt in Clerkenwell on July 5th. We’re getting back some of the turns who’ve impressed us most over the last two years. Tickets are £22 and they include wine and beer. Order yours here.

 

Comments (0)

Two upcoming True Stories events in London

Posted by David Hepworth on Thursday, June 9, 2011

On July 5th at the Crypt in Clerkenwell we present the first ever True Stories Told Live Benefit evening. The Crypt is a bigger venue than our regular monthly home at the Compass which means it’s an opportunity for people who’ve come along over the last couple of years and said “you should charge for this” to buy tickets for a special one-off show featuring some of the turns we’ve enjoyed most over that time.

Six of them will be appearing to tell stories on July 5th in an event that will be slightly longer than our regular monthly events. The Crypt is a lovely, atmospheric meeting space beneath the historic St James’s Church in Clerkenwell, five minutes walk from Farringdon Tube station. Doors open to ticketholders at 6.45, we’ll start at 7.30, there will be an interval midway and the evening will finish at 9.30.

Tickets for this event cost £22, which includes wine and beer. The proceeds from this evening will go towards improving our website, paying our running costs and enabling us to investigate opportunities to take what we’ve learned about story-telling into other areas. This is a chance for people who’ve supported our events in the past to put a little back and also for those who’ve been unable to get on our guest list to get some of the True Stories Told Live experience.

The Crypt has a capacity of 200 so you need to purchase your tickets with credit card now by following this link – http://www.wegottickets.com/event/122278. As soon as your booking is accepted you’ll get a number which is all you’ll need on the night.

Before that, on next Wednesday, June 15th, we’ll have our usual free monthly event at the Compass, N1. We have a limited amount of space and so we’ll be coming up with a guest list which combines people who haven’t been before with people who haven’t been able to get in for a while. If you’d like to be on that list then please reply to mail@truestoriestoldlive.com with your name and the name of one guest before the weekend. On Monday we’ll send out a list of the names we can find room for.

Comments (0)

Tulip Fever and an unexplained penis: just some of last night’s true stories

Posted by David Hepworth on Thursday, May 19, 2011

Afterwards I was talking to some people, including some who came because they wanted to start a True Stories Told Live in Los Angeles, about the fact that every True Stories event is unique, which makes it different from most evenings out. It has to be unique because it throws together five turns, most of whom have never told their story in public before, with an audience, none of whom have heard those stories before. Between them, the turns and the audience, they make something happen. One of the things we tell potential storytellers is the audience are really behind them. When somebody successfully gets over the finish line, preferably within the ten minutes allowed, the people in the room feel they’re part of that achievement. Which is a roundabout way of saying thank you to the people who came last night.

Bill Hope is, like our host Kerry Shale, a Canadian actor. His story began with his arrival in Britain in 1974, meeting an unfeasibly large number of people who shared his surname, developing an interest in Buddhism, learning that hope and fear are different sides of the same coin and eventually ending up at Hopetoun House, a beautiful stately home in Scotland, to find that another man called Hope had already travelled the same road a hundred years earlier.

We all like to think we would know how to react if somebody pointed a gun at us. First-time storyteller Dan Kuper (left), who had that actual experience while working on the London Underground, assured us that everything goes out of your mind except the sincere desire to survive, a distant mental calculation about how much time off you are entitled to if you get through the ordeal and a realisation that you have just squashed your sandwich.

Our musical guest was the legendary Robyn Hitchcock, psychedelic songwriter, raconteur, owner of the largest paisley shirt collection in London, collector of anecdotes about crustaceans and probably the tallest turn we’ve welcomed so far. His story was set in Norway where he has enjoyed some popularity over the years, and involved the splendour of the fjords, too much Norwegian moonshine, an unexplained penis, a sailor’s hat and a crushing hangover. It was followed by his song “Goodnight Oslo”. If you want to know more about the song there’s an interview on You Tube in which Robyn talks about it.

Phil Earle comes from Hull where he was a care worker in a home for young people, the kind of young people who find getting out of bed, getting to school and staying there a genuine daily struggle and not merely a game they play with their indulgent parents. The pressures of the work led to him drinking more than the recommended number of units and eventually a mental breakdown. He was nursed back to stability by his parents and began to write about his experiences. This culminated in the publication of his first novel “Being Billy” earlier this year.

Deborah Moggach, the author of “Tulip Fever” and other best sellers, told the final story of the evening which wove together the death of a loved one in a very public place, the cinematic quality of Dutch paintings, a phone call from Steven Spielberg, how the self-styled “postman to the stars” talked up his role in the movies, the unpleasant associations of the Empire, Leicester Square and how you can put thousands of unwanted tulips to good use.

Unsurprisingly a splendid time was had by all. Thanks very much to all our turns. Please go to their websites and support their activities. If you came along and think you would like to tell a story at a future event please get in touch via mail@truestoriestoldlive.com. Our next True Stories is on June 15th.

Comments (5)

A brilliant night at True Stories

Posted by David Hepworth on Thursday, April 21, 2011

(From left) Eugenia Kis, Nina Killham, Claudia Daventry, Kerry Shale, Daniel Tashian and Ramy Habeeb.

Whether it was something in the gentle spring air coming through the open windows, the right magical combination of turns or the chemistry created between them and a sympathetic crowd I don’t know but last night’s True Stories was a quite special event. We began with  Nina Killham describing a journey into the heart of Africa that climaxed at the top of a rollercoaster in a deserted funfair in the jungle. Claudia Daventry (@clauddav on Twitter) recalled the challenges of bringing up a family in “anything goes” Amsterdam. Our musical turn was Daniel Tashian from Nashville, Tennessee who related the story of his brother in law’s disastrous prom night which led into a heartfelt version of his song “Kid”. You can find out more about Daniel and his group The Silver Seas here.
Ramy Habeeb is of Egyptian and American parentage (though, as he explained, the US government won’t accept him as being African-American) and he began the second half talking about the connection between setting up his Arabic e-publishing house (@kotorabia on Twitter ) and the death of his inspirational father. Finally Eugenia Kis told the extraordinary, harrowing story of how she became the first lesbian in Europe to be granted custody of her child. Eugenia had previously told the story at our sister event in Brighton and talks about it here.

Thanks to everyone who came and contributed in any way.

Comments (3)

Pavarotti, Jehovah and gun crime: about last night at True Stories

Posted by David Hepworth on Thursday, March 17, 2011

Michael Kuhn, Craig Zerf, Nick Revell, Kerry Shale, Nick Barraclough and Deborah Frances-White.

We began with Deborah Frances-White describing the difficulties of being a teenager and a Jehovah’s Witness. This is probably not a subject covered in her show How To Get Almost Anyone To Want To Sleep With You which opens in London in April. Film producer Michael Kuhn talked about the time he was given the unenviable job of telling Luciano Pavarotti that since he had a record contract with Decca he couldn’t record for his wife’s label as well. Our musical turn Nick Barraclough finished the first half of the show with a visit to a town on the Texas-Mexico border to verify a story which was on the face it impossible to believe and sang “Across The Borderline”. Nick Revell, who began the second half, told a story which underlines how you don’t get to choose the person whose life you save. The evening finished with Craig Zerf who described in worrying detail what it was like to have a gun held to your head while going out to get milk. He’s since swapped south Africa for Kent and has written a book called “Plob”. Thanks to everyone who came.

Comments (1)

At last, you can *listen* to True Stories Told Live

Posted by David Hepworth on Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Kate Bland has put together these audio packages for the benefit of anyone who wants a better idea of what True Stories is all about. The first one is twenty minutes long, gives you a flavour of the event and features voices from True Stories events in London, Cardiff and Brighton. Just click below to listen:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

We’ve also got a few of our favourite stories from over the last year. Now some of these may be longer than ten minutes. This was from the days before we realised that everybody benefits from having a strict time limit. Anyway, we begin with Ian Macmillan, the Bard of Barnsley, talking about his parents and the beneficial effects of separation.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ian is an experienced broadcaster but when Shaun Attwood came to TSTL he’d never spoken to an adult audience. He described his experiences in America’s nastiest jail.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Claire MacDonald has spent more time than most people thinking about storytelling in her teaching and researching at Central St Martins. Her story about strangers on a train shows that people can listen to the most unorthodox narrative if it’s well told. And this is well told.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Comments (1)

Do all stories have to be funny?

Posted by David Hepworth on Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Thought I’d share this bit of feedback from one of our friends who came to the last TSTL.

I can honestly say it is the most exciting new cultural experience I have had in ages. If I have one criticism – and this arises from what I had imagine things would be like from your description – it would be that there was rather a slant towards a sort of “stand-up” type of story telling – with a high laughter expectation – from those particular people.”

I think this is a perfectly fair point. I also wonder whether it just goes with the territory. The stories from the last TSTL were essentially quite serious. This being the case it’s natural to want to lighten things with humour. And when you’re standing up there and you get one laugh it’s powerful enough medicine to make you want to get another.

We have had the odd story in the past that was completely laughless from start to finish but it takes a lot of nerve to do that. It would be interesting to hear from people who’ve been in the audience or told stories at TSTL. What do you think?

Comments (3)