We venture out of the Theatre & Circus fields briefly on the second day of the festival for Seanchoíche, an Irish storytelling event – its name combines the Irish words for ‘storyteller’ and ‘night’ – that began in Dublin and has since started regular events globally, including Limerick, Belfast, London, Manchester, Amsterdam, Sydney, Melbourne, Cape Town, Los Angeles and New York. Now, it makes its Glastonbury debut on the festival’s Greenpeace stage.
It has a simple premise: each event has a cast of storytellers who, in turn, tell a short story based on a common theme. Ciaran Gaffney, Seanchoíche’s founder introduces today’s theme: ‘love.’
It’s up to performers how they approach the theme. There are stories about love for friends, lovers, mothers, uncles and cousins. There is straight-forward love, love as a universal language despite language barriers, lost love and love from a ‘skewed perspective.’
Though the premise of ordinary people telling ordinary stories is admirable there are notable issues in its delivery in a festival setting – particularly given the crowd that has been drawn to the Greenpeace stage.
It’s the kind of event that you naturally want to sit down for, and the area in front of the stage has entirely filled by the time the show starts with standing room only at the back and sides – but with licensing restrictions that limit the volume on the festival’s stages until Friday, the sound is poor anywhere beyond the front of the central seated area.
Sound issues are only exacerbated by speakers’ microphone expertise – I don’t catch a word of one storyteller’s tale.
Meanwhile, the casual nature of the show and the freedom for a storyteller to take their own approach benefits some and disadvantages others. A handful spend the set entirely glued to notes on their phone, reading stories verbatim with minimal audience engagement. Others make the format work for them, engaging with the audience – their stories becoming performances. Those are the most striking and memorable moments from the show.
What becomes clear is that while everyone has a story to tell, the secret is in the telling.
