Storytelling: Uncanny

Tonight, back with the Crick Crack Club at Folklore, where Nell Phoenix delivered a show called Uncanny, a set of apparently true scary stories. Tickets from Dice, as ever, and I was eating beforehand in The Blues Kitchen Shoreditch, as usual. This strike promised to be over by evening.

Well now, I guess nobody told the bus passengers that, because the buses were rammed. Crazy busy, I was lucky to get on, glad to get off. Plus they were all delayed. Happily, today's was a short journey - at that, I couldn't get a bus quite close enough, and had to walk the last bit. I was five minutes late, but hey, they were practically empty! I got a table without issue, was served at lightning speed - and oh, it was good. Had one glass of wine, and when I was finished all that, it was late enough that by the time I got to the venue, the doors would be open, so off I went. Pity really - Wednesday is cocktail night, they're all on sale..

Got myself wine at the bar, went in - no ticket check. Took a seat at the side - as Nell passed, she recognised me and asked whether I was ok there. Absolutely, as I told her, there's more space, and I don't have to sit facing to the side too much. Did have to watch lest people trip over me, though! Lucy Lill was MCing, I also saw Laura Sampson at the back, and Sarah Rundle was sitting near me, recognised me as well, and gave me a nod.

Is that a pole-dancing pole..?

The show was a short one - 70 minutes, approximately - and as she said, she had old stories that had been written down and preserved, she had stories that had been told to her, and she had personal experience. For the old stories - my word, there was one from Mesopotamia, 4500 years ago, where an earthquake had disturbed a cemetary, a coffin had cracked, and the spirit of the person inside had escaped and come to find the local priest, and ask him to repair the tomb - he wrote the story on pottery shards that were enclosed in the coffin when it was resealed.. and those shards are in the British Museum!

Next up was one from Ancient Egypt (but of course) 3000 years ago, where the ghost of a young girl who had died appeared to her family, who decided the problem must be that she died unwed - so, they got the priest to depict her on a clay tablet, alongside a handsome young man that they drew for her! Now, her mother worried that this young man they'd conjured up wouldn't treat her right - so the priest depicted him in shackles, under her control.. Again, details were included on the reverse - and that tablet resides, these days, in the British Library!

And so on to the present day, and stories that she had been told, one she experienced for herself. The most affecting of these, for me, was the Guatemalan story of a young couple who'd gone to the market for the day - the stallholder tried to give them a doll, on top of everything else they'd bought, but the young man quickly refused and hurried her away. They had snuck off in his mother's car - as they drove home, the road passed through a tunnel - first the tunnel lights, then the car lights, started to flicker and falter. When they came to a gas station, they stopped for a rest - the young man felt something was off about the car, and asked the attendant to clean the car windows. He came back in in a hurry.. when they went out to see what was wrong, they discovered small handprints, all over the windows - from the inside. And on the rear seat, their bag of purchases was spilt all over the seat - and on top of the bag sat the doll they had refused earlier.. She was told this story by someone who heard it from the young man while she waited for a bus. Her bus came at this point, so she didn't hear the rest.. when asked whether this was a ghost, she responded, "No es un fantasma - es un demonio.."

All through, Nell lent her inimitable storytelling style to tales of a different sort from those she normally tells. And the tales benefitted from this telling! On the way out, she asked whether I liked it - ooh yes.. a professional storyteller knows how to ensnare an audience, and lends a fantastic power to a scary story. More please..

Next, two nights of cheap shows courtesy of CT. Tomorrow, I'm seeing Ancient Grease, a parody of the famous musical, Grease, but - well - set in Ancient Greece! specifically, on Olympus, and focusing on the love affair between Hera and Zeus. Showing in the Vaults Theatre - which I could walk to, in a pinch, considering another strike is coming that day. Happily, we've been absolved of the duty of going into the office this week, because of the strikes.

And on Friday, Down to Chance is a comedy play about the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964, and a local radio operator's role in helping. Showing at the Pleasance Theatre. Again, the strike is to be over by evening.

On Saturday.. well, someone from LoMAZ suggested creating an event to eat sachertorte. Apparently the Lanesborough Hotel is hosting a temporary pop-up, giving you the chance to eat sachertorte and apfelstrudel prepared to the original recipe of the Hotel Sacher in Vienna. However, wouldn't you know it, that's the only day this month that suits James to meet! And he, Mark, and Martin aren't members of that group, and it's a private group event.. the group is headed to a ceilidh that evening, but I said I'd skip it and hang out with James and Mark and Martin, if it suited.. ah, the difficulties of scheduling!

But then, when I asked about timings, the organiser said he'd completely forgotten about it - and was it on Saturday or Sunday? Well, I didn't have anything for Sunday, so asked for that, and he was fine with it.. but a couple of others weren't. Unfortunately, I was outvoted.. and then someone else couldn't do Saturday, so now it's on Sunday after all, phew! Sorted.

On Monday, I'm headed to an interview with Michael Palin at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, dinner beforehand in the Prince of Wales. And my sometime companion is coming too. 

On Tuesday, thinking of film - and what's coming up is The Blue Trail (O Último Azul), a Brazilian film set in a dystopian future where the elderly are shipped off to a colony.. except for a rebellious old woman who's decided she's got too much left to do to be bothered with that! Unfortunately, the closest showing to me is in the Rio, which is quite a ways..

Next Wednesday, back with Up in the Cheap Seats for The Authenticator, which is described as a Gothic psychological thriller. Love anything that describes itself as "psychological". Showing in the Dorfman - and all seats left at the cheapest price were described as "severely restricted"! so I went for the next price bracket up, which was just "restricted". Eating in The Archduke beforehand - wow, it's months since I was last there!

On the 30th, delighted to be back with Spooky Isles! Well, when I say "back".. once upon a time, I knew them as "Spooky London", when they were a great Meetup group, we'd meet in pubs with a spooky history and conversation was fascinating. Sadly, it died a death over the pandemic.. but was resurrected (appropriately, I guess) as Spooky Isles on Facebook! This is their first face-to-face event since, a social evening in honour of Walpurgis Night and Beltane, featuring a talk by a paranormal researcher, and is happening in my old stomping ground of the King & Queen - I used to live right next door! Tickets from Eventbrite.

And on the 1st, back with The Hideout for Deep Water, a thriller about a plane that crashes in shark-infested waters - Ben Kingsley is one of the pilots. Details TBA.