A Small Mind At The Theatre

For those unaware of what Fun Palaces is all about (except fun of course), they are an idea born from an attempt in the sixties by Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price to bring a "laboratory of fun" that would travel from place to place bringing arts, ideas, creation and that key fun to different locations. It never happened. However in 2014, the idea was reborn and across the country in the first weekend of October, 130 places in the UK became a place of "Fun". The Royal & Derngate held one that very year which I attended and it was a day I spent eight hours in the theatre milling about, intrigued by what was going on. For 2016, mine and R&D's third year, I joined them again on both the Saturday and Sunday. For 2016 there was no question that I had more fun than my previous two years. Indeed I had quickly regressed to childhood upon arrival, making a shadow puppet with the help of Lisa Shepherd of Imaginary Ordinary. Going rogue, shunning the temp...

It was birthday time at the NN Cafe as Feast of Fools became a year old. A relatively small (guys come to open mics they are great), but enthusiastic crowd were present to see the eight performers on the evening. Our host for the first half was Richard York who welcomed us to the evening with a none too offensive blast on his bagpipes before spiraling into a number of thanks for those who made the first year such a success. After this he gave a tale of a bag filled with torn up tales. It was all great fun to get the evening going. This was promptly followed by two lovely songs from Theresa Kelleher, the second of which was especially quite amazing. For birthday night we had just the one new performer, however what a new performer. Lynette Hill gave us a quite magical tale of her gran's adventures with her ducks, Cuff and Link. Funny, uplifting and endlessly entertaining. It was quite a debut. We needed a great star to follow that. We got Dave Blake. I have to say I frequently...

When I reviewed the Masque Theatre's Shaxpeare's Box earlier this year there was one glaring omission from the review and that was the rather wonderful and at times very comical music that Richard and Elizabeth York had composed for it. Suitably atmospheric and playful when required, it added much to the whole successful package of the production. The reason it was overlooked was mainly because I knew the chance would come when reviewing Opening Shaxpeare's Box to wax lyrical about it. Although as it happened that original music for the play only appeared during the show via the previous recorded segments played from the computer, it was however great once again to hear it. Opening Shaxpeare's Box was Richard and Elizabeth York tribute to not only the music of the period of Shakespeare's lifetime but also played upon the instruments available at the time. So we had during the show original design harps including the bold and noisy bray harp. We had the fabulous ...

After two months of open mic nights, the Feast of Fools returned to a special guest night with Belfast Londoner Eamonn Keenan. However first up we were treated to a slight open mic night for a half hour warm up from familiar and in one case unfamiliar performers. Opening the evening once again was the music of Richard York, this time again joined by Elizabeth York on the harp (which was to be used a little later in the evening as well to storytelling perfection). Richard York was also our host of the evening and gave us a comic and perfectly sneaky short tail of a shepherds sheep being missing. The perfect punchline that went down well with the assembled audience, even if I am sure the sheep wasn't impressed. Our next teller was the new performer for the evening, her name Anne-Marie Sandos. A playful teller and as she informed us, usually a teller to children. So we were given big and bold telling painted with vast broad strokes, much like Feast regular Lisa Shepherd (and inde...

I am always a big fan of the open mic nights and for the ninth gathering of the Feast Of Fools, I had to make the most of it as this would be the last until April, as for the next two months special guests would be on the menu. As ever our evening was opened with a tune from resident music man Richard York before our host of the evening, Sue Martin welcomed us. She opened the evening with her own little tale and a couple of tales in song. Despite being early year bedeviled by a new tune, we all made it through safely and it provided a different introduction to the first night of the new year. Our first guest of the evening was the wonderful Lisa Shepherd, who at first appeared alarmingly subdued (for Lisa) in her aboriginal dreamtime tale of how animals discover about death. However once the cuckoo was an ex-cuckoo, a deceased, a ceased to be cuckoo the more familiar Lisa returned with animal impersonations aplenty, these included a rather Chinese sounding s...

The eighth Feast Of Fools storytelling event was an Open Mic night and for me since the very beginning these have always been the most entertaining. The guest nights have always been of huge quality, watching true masters of their art in action. However for me, variety is that spice and that is where my love of the Open Mic comes. There is always something truly different ten minutes away. This Open Mic night was without any shadow of a doubt the best and most packed to the gills with talent with both professional and those wonderful, but not quite professional tellers in action. During the evening ten performers took to the stage and each brought something unique to the evening. Our resident host Richard York began the evening with some torturing of an innocent animal to make sound (yes my favourite bag piping, lovely!) and he launched us into the evening with a tale involving a cat licking poo off itself and us in the audience singing in Christmas with a variety of farmyard anima...

Unexpectedly and totally unplanned (thank you The Hoff for doing the decent thing), I found myself at the seventh Feast Of Fools and once again it was an absolute delight. I have been fortunate to have made six of the seven to date and have never left disappointed from the evening. Telling number seven's guest was Liz Weir from Northern Ireland (although almost Scotland) and as often happens I knew nothing of this teller, except a little hint before hand that this was going to be a much more traditional storytelling night than some of the more theatrical ones that I have seen before. Yes it was much more clean and standard telling, however it lost absolutely none of the thrill because of this. I also absolutely loved the desire and effort put in by Liz Weir's on creating an evening of variety from her numerous stories to encourage the young fledgling beast that is Feast Of Fools. This suited me fine as I was concerned that we may have had an evening based around a lot of fo...

The Curious Incident Of The Traffic Jam In The Nighttime The Tale Of The Broken Chair The Mystery Of The Shattered Glass None of these were the stories told as your hero returned to the monthly gathering of the Feast Of Fools. Your hero was triumphant in his return following a battle with the evil and wicked spirit Chestus Infectious preventing an adventurous visit the month before. On this sixth evening of mysterious storytelling the open mic night returned, the lesser supported of the evenings but never the less entertaining. We were welcomed to the evening with Richard "Many Instruments" York's performance on the mesmerising sounding Hurdy Gurdy. Your hero was astounded by the sound, the almost electronic sound this instrument provided. Second to the stage was our host for the evening Sue "Teddy Bear" Martin who as well as providing the welcomes and links of the evening provided a most entertaining early Halloween trick or treat themed tale. Dave ...

So the temperature was somewhere beyond thirty on what was finally recorded as the hottest July day on record and I chose to sit on a leather sofa. Sticky yes, but conveniently close to the window for the meagre breeze that drifted about. My location of course was the NN Cafe and my appointment was with the fourth Feast Of Fools Storytelling event. On this hot night it was the second of the Open Mic evenings where beginners could take to the stage and tell their tales. On this evening there were two debutantes and a collection of slightly more skilled, however all were shackled (slightly) by the ten minute rule. Our host and debut as such was whom I shall always call the teddy bear lady, Sue Martin, who following a little musical intro from Richard York on his Greek Lyre (assured not political), gave her own little tale before welcoming Stephen Ferneyhough to the stage. Mr Ferneyhough gave us a witty little tale of his encounter with the somewhat not in his style McDonald's but...

As the walls of the Royal & Derngate prepared to shake to the tunes of UB40, I settled down in the more sedate environment of the NN Cafe for some storytelling and got... bagpipes! I hate bagpipes. However I stuck it out and didn't flee in the direction of Red, Red Wine. I am glad I did as thankfully our Feast Of Fools resident host Richard York swiftly ceased the torture of the air bag and the storytelling began. We were given a welcome and indeed as the ringing in my ears had stopped, I was able to hear that a certain highly educated reviewer was referenced in the opening speech. Our host also provided us with a aperitif story before the introduction of the guest of the evening. The performer of the evening was the bow tie and tails donning Tim Ralphs. I had seen Tim once before in the Underground presenting a Norse inspired piece ( review here ) and an informative after show Q&A. This time we had a little more Q&A and a performance of his storytelling piece Rebra...

After the packed out venue for the first FOF event a month ago, it was disappointing to have more than a few empty seats for the second one. The likelihood that there were less present was no doubt due to "no name" storyteller performing at the event with this being the local open mic month. However much like seeing the understudy instead of the X-Factor "star" this was no pale imitation. Those that did attend were in for a treat of an evening and the only fools were those that were not there. Opening the event once again was co-organiser and our regular host Richard York. With a little tune from Mr York we were off again for an evening of tales and a little sprinkling of music and some madness. Richard York himself after introductions told us a couple of mini tales of local flavour including an encounter with the devil at Ecton. These were a couple of lovely little tales to wet the appetite for the evening to come. Our second teller was Theresa Kelleher and she...

Let me tell you the story of the day that this won me nothing. I am more likely to get trampled by a herd of wilderbeest down Northampton's Abington Street while I am dressed as Elvis Presley and having a chat with Lord Lucan than to win a raffle. There was even a booby prize last night and I didn't even get a chance to (more than likely) pick that. However I digress, this evening was not about my troubles about winning a raffle. This was the very first, inaugural, premiere, debut, opening and actually something that hadn't happened before, it was the Feast Of Fools Storytelling evening. It was also at a venue I had never been before, the NN Cafe. The idea of Feast Of Fools is to establish a regular (monthly) evening of storytelling from both established and open mic newbies. On this first night, we had four established tellers (although I understand one was only their second performance, so I lie) to start off the event. We had our host Richard York with occasional ...

CRICK! CRACK! CRICK! CRACK! However enough about my back problems. If you are sitting comfortably (well one of us needs to be), then I shall begin. On a fair and splendid evening in the month of Februarius, the hero of our story took a trip to the theatre in a beautiful pea green coat. His destination did hold many tales so bold, from storytellers both young and old. Beneath the Derngate there lays a space they call the underground. This is no Piccalilli or Paddington silly, there are no trains here to behold. On this day the space was filled with tables and chairs that lay quite scattered around. Little tea lights glittered upon each table while a waitress wandered around. The Open Mic Story Night was an opportunity for keen individuals to get up in front of the mic (there was no mic!) and have a go at storytelling. My first experience of storytelling as an art form had come just a month earlier with Fairytales For Grown Ups  and it has been a fascinating ex...