The Crick Crack Club
Encyclopedia
The Crick Crack Club is a London
based performance storytelling
promoter, founded in 1988. It programs public performances of storytelling (mainly for adult audiences) in theaters, and art centers nationally; tours artists and their work; provides training and direction; mentors and supports new artists, undertakes research and advises on the use of storytellers in museums and educational settings.
, the Soho Theatre
, Northern Stage
, the Unicorn Theatre
, Tristan Bates Theatre, Cheltenham Literature Festival
, The Wellcome Collection
, and many others. The performances and the artists The Crick Crack Club programmes, commissions and promotes varies over time. It works with a core of around a dozen UK-based established performance storytellers (plus additional international artists from Northern Europe, the USA and the wider world) plus between five and ten new emerging artists – who are generally termed ‘new voices’. The repertoire of each storyteller is different, and artists continually produce new work, alongside continuing to perform shows that are in their permanent repertoire. The Crick Crack Club is primarily interested in the performance and oral retelling of traditional narrative
material – fairy tale
s, folklore
mythology
, legends and epics – and the content of the vast majority of performances it promotes is based on traditional stories to a greater or lesser extent.
The Crick Crack Club is a Charity. It receives funding from Arts Council England
and The Paul Hamlyn
Foundation.
at Battersea Arts Centre
- the success of this and a second festival at Watermans Art Centre in 1987 prompted an invitation for him to stage a third, 16 day long, international storytelling festival at London's South Bank Centre
in 1989. A list of international artists was drawn up, including Louise Bennett, Vi Hilbert, Abbi Patrix, Eamon Kelly, Seref Tasliova
and Punaram Nishad. However, questions arose as to whether there would actually be enough performance storytellers in the UK with the experience and stage presence to hold large adult audiences for a whole evening with appropriate material. This concern led Ben Haggarty to found the Crick Crack Club. Many of today’s leading British storytellers first cut their teeth on adult audiences at the Club. In the autumn of 1988 the first season of 26 weekly events was launched in a pub theatre in Ladbroke Grove
, with the expressed aim of trying out new artists and providing an opportunity for established artists (who mainly worked in educational contexts) to develop their skills and repertoire for adult audiences.
Between 1988 and 1995, The Crick Crack Club promoted weekly events in several venues in London. From 1995 to 2001, the club organised monthly events at The Spitz, in Spitalfields, including its renowned 'Grand Lying Contest'. During this time it also organised numerous monthly events and mini-festivals in regional arts venues throughout England and elsewhere in London, including at Battersea Arts Centre, The South Bank Centre and Hoxton Hall
. In addition, the Norfolk storyteller, Hugh Lupton
, ran a successful monthly branch of the club during this time at the King of Hearts Arts Centre in Norwich.
From 1991–1993 Ben Haggarty was assisted by storyteller Daniel Morden, and in one year they put on 125 events across England and Wales. In 1993, in partnership with David Ambrose of St. Donats Arts Centre in Wales, the Crick Crack Club created what was to become one of the most celebrated and festive annual storytelling festivals: the Beyond the Border International Festival of Storytelling and Epic Singing. Ben Haggarty, the Crick Crack Club's Artistic Director co-directed Beyond the Border from 1993 to 2005 with specific responsibility for choosing the storytellers, while David Ambrose selected the musicians, puppeteers and other theatrical entertainers.
The Crick Crack Club entered a partnership with Barbican Education at Barbican Arts Centre in 2003, and have since programmed nine events a year in the Barbican Pit Theatre. The Club runs monthly events at the Soho Theatre, featuring experimental performances and rarely seen work by established artists, work in development, and performances by new artists. It programmes annual seasons for The Unicorn Theatre and Cheltenham Literature Festival, and works collaboratively with many other theatres, art centres, museums and galleries.
funded LCIS audio archive of performance storytelling, which totals over 900 individual recordings, each with its own annotated record. It features over 220 voices, and spans a period from 1983 to 2007. As a study of a reviving art form based on the oral tradition
, the material ranges from the raw and experimental, to the polished and formally presented. Most of the material in the archive was originally recorded on an ad hoc basis, with little strategic or long-term view. The archive includes recordings from the experimental club-nights run by The West London Storytelling Unit in London in the early 1980s; material collected by The Company of Storytellers dating from their first tour in 1985 and onwards; recordings collected at the first three UK International Storytelling Festivals in London in 1985, 87 and 89; from Beyond the Border Festival over the years and some more recent recordings from Festival at the Edge, the Barbican Arts Centre and the Unicorn Theatre. It features over 220 voices, including that of Hugh Lupton
, TUUP, Sally Pomme Clayton, Ben Haggarty, Abbi Patrix and Laura Simms, as well as superb examples of some of the world's greatest surviving epic singing traditions such as Central Indian Pandavani
, Rajasthani Pabuji Ki Phad
, Kyrgyz Manas singing (singers of the epic of Manas
), the work of Turkish Ashik
s and Bangladeshi Palagan and Patuagan performers.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
based performance storytelling
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
promoter, founded in 1988. It programs public performances of storytelling (mainly for adult audiences) in theaters, and art centers nationally; tours artists and their work; provides training and direction; mentors and supports new artists, undertakes research and advises on the use of storytellers in museums and educational settings.
Programming
Crick Crack Club events take place in numerous venues, including the Barbican CentreBarbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...
, the Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre is a theatre in the eponymous Soho district of the City of Westminster. It presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret....
, Northern Stage
Northern Stage
Northern Stage is a non-profit, regional professional company located in White River Junction, Vermont. The company began in 1992 to offer high-quality professional theater in northern New England...
, the Unicorn Theatre
Unicorn Theatre
The Unicorn Theatre is a producer of professional theatre for children in Britain. It is based in a RIBA Award–winning centre in Tooley Street, in the London Borough of Southwark, opened in 2005...
, Tristan Bates Theatre, Cheltenham Literature Festival
Cheltenham Literature Festival
The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, a large-scale international festival of literature in the Spa town of Cheltenham, and part of Cheltenham Festivals: also responsible for the Jazz, Music and Science Festivals that run every year....
, The Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection
The Wellcome Collection is a museum at 183 Euston Road, London, displaying an unusual mixture of medical artifacts and original artworks exploring 'ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art'. The Collection comprises three public exhibition spaces, an auditorium, events space, cafe...
, and many others. The performances and the artists The Crick Crack Club programmes, commissions and promotes varies over time. It works with a core of around a dozen UK-based established performance storytellers (plus additional international artists from Northern Europe, the USA and the wider world) plus between five and ten new emerging artists – who are generally termed ‘new voices’. The repertoire of each storyteller is different, and artists continually produce new work, alongside continuing to perform shows that are in their permanent repertoire. The Crick Crack Club is primarily interested in the performance and oral retelling of traditional narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
material – fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s, folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, legends and epics – and the content of the vast majority of performances it promotes is based on traditional stories to a greater or lesser extent.
The Crick Crack Club is a Charity. It receives funding from Arts Council England
Arts Council England
Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...
and The Paul Hamlyn
Paul Hamlyn
Paul Hamlyn, Baron Hamlyn of Edgeworth, CBE , was a German-born British publisher and philanthropist.-Family:...
Foundation.
History
The Crick Crack Club was the first performance storytelling club to be established in the UK. From 1988–1995 26 weekly events took place every autumn and winter. Artists received fees to entertain an audience who had paid an entry fee. Unlike folk clubs there were no ‘floorspots’; from the beginning, it only promoted professional artists and did not encourage amateur participation. It was founded in 1988 by performance storyteller Ben Haggarty with assistance during the first year from Jenny Pearson. In January 1985 Ben Haggarty had organised Britain's first storytelling festivalStorytelling festival
A storytelling festival is often an annual event that features local, regional and/or nationally known oral storytellers. Each storyteller will have a scheduled amount of time to share a story with an audience...
at Battersea Arts Centre
Battersea Arts Centre
The Battersea Arts Centre is a performance space near Clapham Junction in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth that specialises in music and theatre productions.-History:...
- the success of this and a second festival at Watermans Art Centre in 1987 prompted an invitation for him to stage a third, 16 day long, international storytelling festival at London's South Bank Centre
South Bank Centre
Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, UK, on the South Bank of the River Thames between County Hall and Waterloo Bridge. It comprises three main buildings , and is Europe’s largest centre for the arts. It attracts more than three million visitors annually...
in 1989. A list of international artists was drawn up, including Louise Bennett, Vi Hilbert, Abbi Patrix, Eamon Kelly, Seref Tasliova
Şeref Taşlıova
Şerafettin Taşliova is a Turkish storyteller in the asik bardic tradition.Taşliova has won many prizes at bardic contests for improvised poetry and storytelling; many at international level...
and Punaram Nishad. However, questions arose as to whether there would actually be enough performance storytellers in the UK with the experience and stage presence to hold large adult audiences for a whole evening with appropriate material. This concern led Ben Haggarty to found the Crick Crack Club. Many of today’s leading British storytellers first cut their teeth on adult audiences at the Club. In the autumn of 1988 the first season of 26 weekly events was launched in a pub theatre in Ladbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove is a road in west London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is also sometimes the name given informally to the immediate area surrounding the road. Running from Notting Hill in the south to Kensal Green in the north, it is located in North Kensington and straddles...
, with the expressed aim of trying out new artists and providing an opportunity for established artists (who mainly worked in educational contexts) to develop their skills and repertoire for adult audiences.
Between 1988 and 1995, The Crick Crack Club promoted weekly events in several venues in London. From 1995 to 2001, the club organised monthly events at The Spitz, in Spitalfields, including its renowned 'Grand Lying Contest'. During this time it also organised numerous monthly events and mini-festivals in regional arts venues throughout England and elsewhere in London, including at Battersea Arts Centre, The South Bank Centre and Hoxton Hall
Hoxton Hall
Hoxton Hall is a community centre and performance space in Hoxton, at 130 Hoxton Street, in the London Borough of Hackney.A grade II* listed building, the theatre was first built as a Music hall in 1863, as MacDonald's Music hall. It is an unrestored example of the saloon-style...
. In addition, the Norfolk storyteller, Hugh Lupton
Hugh Lupton
Hugh Lupton is one of the most prominent figures in the Oral Storytelling Tradition. He co-founded the Company of Storytellers in 1985, and for a while ran a branch of The Crick Crack Club in Norfolk...
, ran a successful monthly branch of the club during this time at the King of Hearts Arts Centre in Norwich.
From 1991–1993 Ben Haggarty was assisted by storyteller Daniel Morden, and in one year they put on 125 events across England and Wales. In 1993, in partnership with David Ambrose of St. Donats Arts Centre in Wales, the Crick Crack Club created what was to become one of the most celebrated and festive annual storytelling festivals: the Beyond the Border International Festival of Storytelling and Epic Singing. Ben Haggarty, the Crick Crack Club's Artistic Director co-directed Beyond the Border from 1993 to 2005 with specific responsibility for choosing the storytellers, while David Ambrose selected the musicians, puppeteers and other theatrical entertainers.
The Crick Crack Club entered a partnership with Barbican Education at Barbican Arts Centre in 2003, and have since programmed nine events a year in the Barbican Pit Theatre. The Club runs monthly events at the Soho Theatre, featuring experimental performances and rarely seen work by established artists, work in development, and performances by new artists. It programmes annual seasons for The Unicorn Theatre and Cheltenham Literature Festival, and works collaboratively with many other theatres, art centres, museums and galleries.
Origins of the name
In the francophone islands of the Caribbean, when a storyteller wants to tell a story, he or she calls ‘Cric?’ and those who want to hear respond with the affirmation ‘Crac!’. Given the Northern British usage of Crack (Irish: Craic) to denote a story, Ben Haggarty coined the name Crick Crack Club in 1988. (Variations of the name have been subsequently used by independent groups in Edinburgh ‘The Guid Craic Club’ , in Newcastle, ‘A Bit Crack’ and in Stockholm ‘ The Crick Crack Café’).Audio archive
The Crick Crack Club holds the Heritage Lottery FundHeritage Lottery Fund
The Heritage Lottery Fund is a fund established in the United Kingdom under the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The Fund opened for applications in 1994. It uses money raised through the National Lottery to transform and sustain the UK’s heritage...
funded LCIS audio archive of performance storytelling, which totals over 900 individual recordings, each with its own annotated record. It features over 220 voices, and spans a period from 1983 to 2007. As a study of a reviving art form based on the oral tradition
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
, the material ranges from the raw and experimental, to the polished and formally presented. Most of the material in the archive was originally recorded on an ad hoc basis, with little strategic or long-term view. The archive includes recordings from the experimental club-nights run by The West London Storytelling Unit in London in the early 1980s; material collected by The Company of Storytellers dating from their first tour in 1985 and onwards; recordings collected at the first three UK International Storytelling Festivals in London in 1985, 87 and 89; from Beyond the Border Festival over the years and some more recent recordings from Festival at the Edge, the Barbican Arts Centre and the Unicorn Theatre. It features over 220 voices, including that of Hugh Lupton
Hugh Lupton
Hugh Lupton is one of the most prominent figures in the Oral Storytelling Tradition. He co-founded the Company of Storytellers in 1985, and for a while ran a branch of The Crick Crack Club in Norfolk...
, TUUP, Sally Pomme Clayton, Ben Haggarty, Abbi Patrix and Laura Simms, as well as superb examples of some of the world's greatest surviving epic singing traditions such as Central Indian Pandavani
Pandavani
Padavani is a folk singing style of musical narration of tales from ancient epic Mahabharata with musical accompaniment and Bhima as hero....
, Rajasthani Pabuji Ki Phad
Pabuji Ki Phad
Pabuji Ki Phad is a religious scroll painting of folk deities, which is used for a musical rendition of the only surviving ancient traditional folk art form in the world of the epic of Pabuji, the Rathod Rajput chief....
, Kyrgyz Manas singing (singers of the epic of Manas
Epic of Manas
The Epic of Manas is a traditional epic poem claimed by the Kyrgyz people dating to the 18th century, though it is possibly much older. In some earlier versions, however, Manas is identified as Nogay. This opens the possibility of Manas having spoken a dialect of Turki similar to that of the...
), the work of Turkish Ashik
Ashik
An Ashik is a mystic troubadour or traveling bard, in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Iran who sings and plays the saz, a form of lute. Ashiks' songs are semi-improvised around common bases....
s and Bangladeshi Palagan and Patuagan performers.