What happens?

The Feast of Fools story club meets on the first Wednesday of each month except August. We generally alternate professional guest nights, showcasing great professional storytellers, with Open Tellers' Nights - open mic style sessions.

Expect Oral storytelling both traditional and contemporary - stories told with no script, some traditional stories, some completely devised by the performers. So they're never exactly the same twice, and they live in an exchange of energy between performer and audience which is special to this form of storytelling.
Oral storytelling... if you're thinking that's just sanitised stories for children, do come and find why this performance art has thrived for so many thousand years, and why the all-adult Feast of Fools club has thrived since we opened in 2015!
Learn about our guest performers, and a record of nearly every past session on our Diary page Here

In our Open Tellers' Nights, we've welcomed both very new tellers and very experienced ones, and on one memorable night, a line of professionals you'd have to pay significant ticket money to see at a festival!
We also feature occasional music spots as part of these evenings.

Expect good company in good surroundings - the Feast of Fools audience has earned its high reputation! There's usually extremely good cake, too.

If you wish to perform, please contact Richard (see below). We can't always guarantee a place, but if there's one available, you get a slot of up to 10 minutes, shorter if you prefer, and an audience who are very inclined to be warm and supportive. The story, or music, can be traditional, your own treatment of traditional, or something of your own devising.

But no microphone - there never is!

And the other "no" is: no script. We're an oral storytelling club, not a reading group, excellent as these are.

The Etiquette of taking stories

Be it a traditional or an original story, each performance is the creation of the teller. And oral stories stay alive by retelling, so passing them on is lifeblood to them.
So hearing and passing on a story can be the sincerest form of flattery, but please remember always to ask the teller first, and if you do then tell your own version please always acknowledge them as your source. Most storytellers are generous people who are happy to share, but it's important to respect this tradition, just as is best practice with traditional musicians.

If it's somebody's own original story, that moves the goalposts closer together: it's very much their own material. Again, they may be happy for their story to be passed on, but please always ask them first.

To contact us, please please email Richard York using:

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