Welcome to 2017. I am groggy with the jetlag of landing back in the UK. It was an interesting New Year’s Eve, midnight rushing West to meet us as we flew East towards the sunrise.
It’s a time of change and one of these changes is that I’m handing over the running and administration of Sheffield’s The Story Forge. I’ve been hosting the club since the middle of 2009 and the time has come for the torch to be passed on. Freshly molten words will still cool in the quiet waters of the Don. Stories will still get forged. I have great, great hope for 2017 and the future of the club. Not least because Hugh Lupton is bringing Beowulf in January.
Most of the details for the club will be the same. The email address. The location. And so on. I with the new team the best of luck!
After seven and a half years, there’s a lot I’m proud of. One of those things has been bringing world class storytelling to the little upstairs room at The Fat Cat. So to sign off The Story Forge, here’s a list, as best as I can remember, of every show we’ve hosted. How many do you remember? What have I missed?
Simon Heywood – Tales of Darkest England
Tim Ralphs – The Kaleidoscope
Rachel Rose Reid – The Little Tailor
Sophie Snell – Seven Deadly Sins
Peter Findlay – A Silent World (How Anansi stole us stories)
David Hague’s – Old Jack
Kat Quatermass – Tales of Love and Loss
Dominic Kelly – The Gift
Christine Cooper – The Battle of The Trees
Ben Haggerty – The Blacksmith at The Bridge of Bones
Shonaleigh – The Tower of Bagel
Helen Stewart and Honor Giles – Love, Death and Divine Intervention
Tim Ralphs – On Our St George’s Day
Simon Heywood – Robin Hood
Nell Phoenix – Fairy Tales for Fearless Adults
Rachel Rose Reid – I’m Hans Christian Andersen
Ursula Holden Gills – There are fairies in the gutter
Richard Trouncer – Pub Gods
Raymond Greenoaken – The Music of What Happens
Jo Blake Cave – The Smiling Fox
Sarah Rundle – Gawain and the Green Knight
Clare Murphy – The King of Lies
Simon Heywood – Vortigern
Guto Dafis – Jackie Kent and The Devil’s Purse
Moni and Ivor – The Dragon Lover
Giles Abbott – Caught on the Horns
Ruthie Boycott Garnett – Here’s to the Hare
Emily Parrish-Hennessey – Loki
Cath Little – Castle Arrianhrod
Cat Gerrard – Body without Soul
Daniel Morden – Tales from the Mabinogien
Raymond Greenoaken – Alistair Begg
Nell Phoenix – The Kiss of Forgetfulness
Ana Lines – The Barbecued Husbands
Alys Torrance – Cracking the Tale Bones (Inuit stories)
Tim Ralphs – Can the Mountains Love the Sea?
Cath Edwards – Pirates!
Cath Little – The Apple Tree Woman
Amanda Smith – Choices and Regrets
Mike Payton – Bullfighting Widows and Haunted Cows
Sarah Lise Wilkinson – A Girl with No Hands
Red Phoenix – My Passport says Storyteller
Tim Ralphs – Bed of Arrows
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