Celebrating the traditional art of storytelling, Flying Donkeys meets monthly in Derby and brings many of the finest British and international storytellers to the city.  It is run by Helen Frances, Raymond Greenoaken, Roy Dyson, Sophie Snell, Annie Noble, John Fearon, Mel Blount  (photos yet to be uploaded) all active storytellers themselves, and supported by Antoinette Burchill,  Derby City’s Support and Performance Officer.

The Flying Donkeys Storytelling came into being in 1996, masterminded by Roy Dyson, an experienced storyteller and animateur, to build upon an interest in traditional storytelling that had grown both locally and nationally through the 1990s. It was convened initially at The Flowerpot, a big, noisy club in Derby city centre that also hosted rock concerts and other colourful entertainments. From the outset, Flying Donkeys Storytelling brought in the best of British storytellers, including Shonaleigh, Ben Haggarty, Jan Blake, Hugh Lupton, Helen East and Michael Dacre, as well as tellers from further afield, such as New Zealand's Mary Kippenberger and Francis Firebrace from Australia.

For various reasons theFlying Donkeys Storytelling moved to The Dolphin Inn during 2000, and shortly after Roy stepped back and left tFD’s in the capable hands of local storytellers Graham Langley, Pete Castle, Martin King, and Sheffield-based Simon Heywood. This team was brought together by Naomi Wilds, then Derby City's Literature Officer, who also took an important backstage role in the running FD’s (which included serving refreshments, a significant factor in its continuing popularity). A further move to place in 2003 to The Voice Box, a designated spoken word space with wondrous acoustics. Recent guests have included Nick Hennessey, Sedayne, Katrice Horsley, Egypt's Chirine El Ansary, Paula Martin from Argentina, and Dave Robertson.

For many years every four months or so the evening was run as an Open Night, where local and upcoming storytellers performed in a supportive setting. Additionally, monthly Story Circles were initiated (a smaller, more intimate variant of the Open Night format) designed especially for people dipping a first tentative toe into the swirling waters of storytelling. The Flying Donkeys also organised workshop events for the development of essential storytelling skills, conducted in a friendly environment by highly-regarded professional storytellers.

Movers and shakers came and went, and in 2003 Pete Castle withdrew from active involvement and his place was taken by Helen Frances. When Simon Heywood moved to London, Raymond Greenoaken, another Sheffield-based teller, filled the vacant seat on the committee. In 2005, Naomi Wilds was succeeded as Derby Literature Officer and Donkeys Refreshments Operative by Alex Davis and in 2006 the Flying Donkeys welcomed back into their ranks the much-missed Roy Dyson.
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n addition to their Voice Box and workshop activities, the Flying Donkeys were active in community-based events such as the Derby Literature Festival (hosting the highly successful Cylhwch And Olwen presentation in 2005) and Shoutfest and in initiating storytelling-related art commissions. The comfortable and informal atmosphere  built up at Flying Donkeys over the past few years gave rise to a completely spontaneous response from local artists and art students. They brought along their sketch books and not only captured the audience and guest performers, but also images from the stories as they were being told.

In 2007/8 the Arts Council  award enabled the Flying Donkeys team of Roy, Helen and Raymond to research and develop a series of stories about Derbyshire which were then taken on tour, with great success, to a variety of locations in the county.

2008/9 saw a completely new direction which allowed us to develop an extended storytelling  programme in a school, Arboretum Primary, a multicultural school in which pupils speak over 30 different languages. We were able to place a number of skiiled professional storytellers to facilitate an awareness of storytelling over the course of a year.  In addition we were able to book a number of storytellers in Hospitals as part of a stroke rehabilitation programme.

A second project, a Textile Screen Commission from Derby artist Rachel Moses, was unveiled in October 2006......

For an enlarged view click on each picture.

Drawing On Stories is Flying Donkeys' own success story. Supported by the Arts Council, England, FD initiated a series of important cross-art-form projects. The first of these, Twelve Sketches, telling the story of nighst at Flying Donkeys was started by University of Derby student Zora Payne who took her degree in Illustration in the summer of 2005. It was her enthusiasm and dedication which both sparked off the ideas for the commission and made it possible. Now her sketches are a vibrant representation of what it feels like to be carried away in the imagination when listening to stories.

Click on pictures to see an enlarged view