The Island Storytellers

About us

The Island Storytellers are based on the Isle of Wight. Our purposes are:

•   To develop oral storytelling on the Isle of Wight

•   To encourage participation in storytelling activities in all ages, abilities and cultural groups
•   To increase public awareness of the art, practice and value of storytelling and the narrative traditions of the peoples and cultures of the world

The Island Storytellers formed in 2007.  They are a diverse group of people from all walks of life who share a common interest in oral storytelling and poetry. 

They meet on the third Monday of the month at 8pm to share stories and poems, in the informal setting of the Castle Inn, in Newport, Isle of Wight.  Anybody, members or not, is welcome to come along to these evenings – to tell a tale or to just sit and listen.  Older children are welcome to come along too. 

Over the past year, apart for the monthly storyclubs, they have held an open microphone session in the café at Quay Arts and taken part in Wight Words – a literary festival.

If you would like to join the Island Storytellers please use the contacts page or come along to a regular monthly session. Membership is  £5/year.

Other Past Events:

Carry on storytelling  - Oct 07. Carry on Storytelling was the Island Storytellers contribution to WightWords.

It was a frolic through various traditional tales and  involved about fifteen people and used a variety of styles. 

The event was opened with a couple of poems about earwigs and squirrels, which set the light hearted tone for the afternoon.

A rendition of Red Riding Hood had the main characters telling their part in four different languages. There was a French mother, A German Red Riding Hood, An Italian wolf and a South African grandma, a Black Country woodcutter and with an English narrator to hold it all together.

The Enormous Turnip was retold with help from the audience who dressed up, giving the narrator a hard task to include them in the story meaningfully. To contrast with this, just one person narrated the Incredibly tiny turnip which was food enough for one small mouse.

One family used puppets to tell the story of Davy and the Devil, with their eldest son telling the story of how Davy, with a bit of help from the King of the Sea, outwitted the devil and kept a cow that gave the creamiest milk on the whole of the Isle of Wight.

Foolish Jack suffered from that common ailment  - a lack of common sense – but it made for a hilarious story that entertained one and all.