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THE FLYING DONKEYS: A BRIEF HISTORY
The Flying Donkeys storytelling club 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. The club 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 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 the club moved to The Dolphin in 2000, and later to The Blue Room, by which time Roy had stepped back and left the club in the capable hands of local storytellers Graham Langley, Pete Castle (pictured left) and Martin King, and Sheffield-
Every four months or so the evening is run as an Open Night, on which local and upcoming storytellers can perform in a supportive setting. Additionally, monthly Story Circles have been 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 organise workshop events for the development of essential storytelling skills, conducted in a friendly environment by highly-regarded professional storytellers.
Movers and shakers come and go, and in 2003 Pete Castle withdrew from active involvement and his place was taken by Helen Frances; and when Simon Heywood (pictured right) moved to London the following year Raymond Greenoaken, another Sheffield-
In addition to their Voice Box and workshop activities, the Flying Donkeys are active in community-based events such as the Derby Literature Festival (hosting the highly successful Cylhwch And Olwen presentation in 2005) and in initiating storytelling-related art commissions. The comfortable and informal atmosphere that has been built up at Flying Donkeys over the past three years has given rise to a completely spontaneous response from local artists and art students. They have been bringing their sketch books along, and drawing not only the audience and guest performers, but also capturing images from the stories as they are being told.
Drawing On Stories is Flying Donkeys' own success story. Supported by the Arts Council, England, FD have now initiated a series of important cross-art-form projects. The first of these, Twelve Sketches, telling the story of a night at Flying Donkeys, is currently on display at the Voice Box. This was all started by University of Derby student Zora Payne. Zora took her degree in Illustration in the summer of 2005, and it was her enthusiasm and dedication which both sparked off the ideas for the commission and made it possible. Now her sketches hang on the walls of The Voice Box on Flying Donkeys nights, a vibrant representation of what it feels like to be carried away in the imagination when listening to stories. Some of Zora's preparatory sketches can be viewed below.
Click on pictures to see an enlarged view
A second project, a textile screen commissioned from Derby artist Rachel Moses, was unveiled in October 2006......
For further information contact Roy: HERE or Tel: 01773 781 007