More Insights into Myth, Metaphor & Meaning - Spring 2015 Talks Series

The Crick Crack Club launches a Spring Talks Series in April 2015, featuring prominent speakers Professor Ronald Hutton, Dr Martin Shaw, and master storyteller Hugh Lupton.

Following its sold-out first series, a new round of talks which interrogate our relationship with myth, metaphor and meaning, will be given by speakers from a wide range of academic and practical disciplines. The speakers will explore their living relationship with story, with metaphor and meaning, and with the very archaeology of the imagination.

The talks series was conceived to draw attention to the value of Folktales, Fairytales, Epic and Myth as time honoured entertainment for grownups, not just children. What is it about these fantastical stories of talking horses, immortal beings, and magical objects that speaks to us as adult audiences?

All talks begin at 7pm at Swedenborg House, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH. All talks are suitable for adults and cost £8 (plus booking fee) and include a glass of wine and nibbles.

THE TALKS

Professor Ronald Hutton DEBUNKING ROBIN HOOD – 8^th April 2015

Genius professor and exuberant lecturer Prof Ronald Hutton returns following January’s brilliant exploration of the figure of the Hero. This time, he’s here to debunk Robin Hood, give Marian a once-over, and scrutinise Friar Tuck’s waistline. He’ll muse over which roads are best for a good highway mugging and ask: Why is Robin Hood so famous? How long has his legend been in existence? What has been added to it and when? And finally, the awkward matter of: Did Robin Hood ever actually exist?

‘We need a bedrock of story and legend in order to live our lives coherently’ Alan Moore

EVENT LINK: http://www.crickcrackclub.com/talks/?page_id=148

Dr Martin Shaw on THE TRICKSTER ‘MOMENT’ – 6^th May 2015

Mythologist and storyteller Dr. Martin Shaw returns for a night of story and speculation on the figure of the Trickster. He claims we’re living not in a Goddess time, or a Zeus era, but in a trickster moment. So, where do we find the company of a contemporary Trickster? In the crook, the con-man, or in service to the Sacred? The Greek word Metis, meaning ‘skill’ or ‘cunning’, is what Shaw suggests we’d be wise to study. Crazy wisdom, or smoke and mirrors?

Trickster has many guises. And no scruples. These are not stories for the faint of heart!

‘Lay a trap for a trickster, but beware of an honest man’ Arabian proverb

EVENT LINK: http://www.crickcrackclub.com/talks/?page_id=141

Hugh Lupton on LIVES IN MYTH –10^th June 2015

Master storyteller Hugh Lupton has, over the last ten years, become fascinated by the way that the deep patterns of traditional narrative and the events of individual lives echo one another, especially in moments of crisis. In this talk he will be exploring the question: ‘Do we live the myths, or do the myths live us?’

He will refer to his own performances of the stories of John Clare, Thomas Gee, Jenny Wing, Arthur Ransome, Duncan Williamson and Richard Howard… and to a wide spectrum of ballads, myths, legends and wonder-tales from many cultures.

‘A history only gives a story of the shadows, whereas a myth gives a story of the substances that cast the shadows’ Annie Besant

EVENT LINK: http://www.crickcrackclub.com/talks/?page_id=153

All talks begin at 7pm at Swedenborg House, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH. All talks are suitable for adults and cost £8 (plus booking fee) and include a glass of wine and nibbles.

THE SPEAKERS

RONALD HUTTON Our very favourite history teacher, Ronald Hutton is the Professor of History at Bristol University, where he has taught for thirty-three years after winning his degrees at Cambridge and then Oxford and being elected to a Fellowship at an Oxford College. He has since been made a Fellow of the British Academy and of three other learned societies. He has broadcast regularly on radio and television for thirty years, writing and presenting his own work as well as being a regular contributor to documentaries: his most recent series, “Professor Hutton’s Curiosities,” explored London museums for the Yesterday Channel.

MARTIN SHAW is a man who sometimes keeps a bear under his chair. An award winning author, storyteller and director of the West Country School of Myth in Devon; he devised and led the Oral Tradition course at Stanford University, and is principal teacher at the Great Mother Conference in the United States. His translations of Gaelic and Welsh folklore (with Tony Hoagland) have been published in the Mississippi Review, Poetry International, Kenyon Review, Orion, Poetry Magazine. David Abram describes his latest book, Snowy Tower, as ‘an outrageous piece of magic’, and Robert Bly describes him as ‘a true master’. www.schoolofmyth.com

HUGH LUPTON
Widely acclaimed throughout the UK as the master of poetic storytelling, Hugh’s distinctive style focuses on richly crafted use of the English language. An award winning performer and writer, he has collaborated widely with singers and musicians and other performers. In 2005, he won the Classical Association prize for ‘the most significant contribution to the public understanding of the classics’ with Daniel Morden. His first novel, based on the life of poet John Clare, was published in 2010 and his song ‘One in a Million’ (co-written with Chris Wood) won the BBC 2 folk awards for ‘Original Song of the Year’ 2005.