Bringing Myth to Life with The University of Nottingham Classics Department

Oh my goodness, 2016 has been incredibly busy. I’m just finishing my third project with University researchers. I gave gnomes the gift of speech at Hampton Court Palace. I toured India with the British Council. And I’m in the middle of developing a new show that will premier at the Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival.

And that’s just the big stuff.

One of my favourite recent projects has been working with The University of Nottingham’s Classics Department. They’ve run a series of screenings of Tragedies adapted for TV which were enormously popular. (Channel 4’s 1983 Orestia blew me away!) And for people who wanted to take this further, they ran workshops to explore different ways of working with myth.

Look at the concentration!

That’s where I came in. I love working with myth and I think it presents some unique challenges to storytellers. Greek myths are such a complicated, interconnected web of stories and we can no longer presume that our listeners have the same degree of familiarity with the material that Homer relied on. So a few weeks ago, 16 eager storytellers and I spent a whole day delving deep into the magic of myth and working to bring some ancient stories to life once more.

We had some fun too.

It was a great day. I work people pretty hard in my workshops and the group really committed to getting the most out of the day. Well done everyone and a big thank you to Lynn Fotheringham for making it all happen.