We’re pleased to announce that ‘Tis Tales will be performing at the Medina Bookshop, Cowes, on Saturday, October 8th, 2022, 7.30pm-8.30pm, as part of the Isle of Wight Literary Festival, with another outing of our Island Tales set. We may not have books to sell, but we certainly have tales to tell… Tickets, priced £10, are available from the Isle of Wight Literary Festival website.
If you ever pass by the village of Cranborne in Dorset, make sure to pay a visit to the Ancient Technology Centre, an outdoor living history centre with recreations of several ancient buildings, including an iron age roundhouse, a Viking Longhouse (eat your heart out, other museum cafés!), and a spectacular recreation of an iron age Earthouse. The earthouse itself provides a 250 seat capacity in-the-round indoor theatre (although you might want to take a cushion to sit on). ...
Last weekend seems to have been a busy one in the world of UK storytelling festivals, with both the Oxford Storytelling Festival and the East Anglian Storytelling Festival taking place. Tellers at Oxford included Shonaleigh, Jan Blake, Emily Hennessy & Sheema Mukhurjee, Nick Hennessey, Tom Hirons, Riika Palonen, Lisa Schneidau, and David Heathfield. Shonaleigh also featured at East Anglia, along with other half Simon Heywood, Clare Murphy, Xanthe Gresham, Dave Tonge, Taffy Thomas, and more… ...
A couple of weeks ago, on a trip to see the roundy-roundy BTCC racing touring cars at Snetterton in Norfolk, I (Monty) took a slight detour via Swaffham in search of remnants of the traditional tale The Pedlar of Swaffham (as for example collected by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairy Tales [ notes]). In the Church there, you can find carvings of the pedlar and his dog. The pew ends also have various other carvings, which makes me wonder whether there are stories attached to those as well… ...
Thanks to Ventnor Arts Club, and a great audience, at our Ventnor Fringe performance of “Island Tales”: it was a fantastic venue for a storytelling event — our first in a theatrical setting — and it’d be great to see more storytelling events there. Huge thanks, too, to the folk at Ventnor Exchange for all they do organising the Ventnor Fringe each year. If you haven’t made it to any events yet, there’s still dozens of events, both ticketed and free, upcoming: https://vfringe.co.uk/ ...
This Saturday, July 23rd, 2022, 7pm, we’ll be performing for the first time as Tis Tales, at the Ventnor Arts Club, as part of the Ventnor Fringe. Tickets are still available from the Ventnor Fringe Box Office: https://vfringe.co.uk/events/island-tales
Over the last couple of weekends, we’ve been out and about at various festivals. A couple of weeks ago, we were all involved with the Spoke’n’Heard tent at RhythmTree Festival, here on the Isle of Wight. With some good turnouts, not least for our headline acts, we’ll be looking to build audiences even more if the Festival will have us back! Last weekend, Sue and Monty also made a pilgrimage to FATE — Festival at the Edge. This is of the UK’s best, and longest running storytelling festivals, and you can be sure that we’ve brought back many of the tales we picked up there.. ...
As part of of the Ventnor Fringe, we’re involved in a whole host of upcoming events. From storywalks and the book bus, to an Island Storytellers collective event and our first `Tis Tales performance, there are plenty of opportunities to come and hear some tales told the traditional way. ‘Tis Tales — Island Tales Following several shows as “Three Island Storytellers”, Holly Medland, Tony “Monty” Hirst and Sue Bailey are coming to Ventnor Fringe for a first performance in their new guise of ‘Tis Tales. ...
The first performance of Holly, Monty, and Sue as ‘Tis Tales will take place during Ventnor Fringe, 2022, at the Ventnor Arts Club on Saturday, July 23rd, 2022, 7pm-8pm with An Evening of Island Tale s. Tickets available from the Ventnor Fringe Box Office.
Finishing where we started, the final Three Island StoryTellers performance was held at microbrewery and craft ale arts pub Boojum & Snark in Sandown, Isle of Wight on Thursday, 23rd July, 2022. A two act performance featuring tales from a range of traditions, including Thor and the Stolen Hammer, Godmother Death, and The Birth of Music, a tale that also involved a first outing for Holly’s lyre. No animals were harmed during the performance, although one did take part… But that’s another story… ...