Ben has played a key and influential role in the revival of professional performance storytelling in the UK. He is a performance storyteller of international renown; a narrative consultant; a promoter and organiser of storytelling events; a director and much sought after teacher. Ben is Honorary Professor of Storytelling at Berlin's University of the Arts (UDK) and is Project Director of the London Centre for International Storytelling.

His initial training was as a Theatre Director and as an ‘image maker’ with Welfare State International. He spent several years working with mime, masks and puppets before becoming a professional performance storyteller in 1981.

Ben has been programming high-profile performance storytelling events since 1985. He organised the UK’s first three International Storytelling Festivals during the 1980s and in 1987 he established the Crick Crack Club of which he is Artistic Director. In this role he programmes and organises experimental and theatre performances, educational projects, and conferences and training.

He co-founded and, until 2005, co-directed the annual Beyond the Border International Storytelling festival, which has drawn audiences from across the world, since its inception in 1993; and in the mid nineties he co-founded The Company of Storytellers with colleagues Hugh Lupton and Sally Pomme Clayton, to take high quality storytelling performances to adult audiences.

From 1987 - 1992 he was a consultant to The Schools Curriculum Development Council for the National Oracy Project and he continues to participate in consultations regarding the teaching of speaking and listening in schools, and on the use of storytelling in educational contexts.

Ben performs for audiences of all ages, and in venues ranging from caves to the Carnegie Hall. He has worked extensively with major organisations including (in the UK) English Heritage, Shakespeare's Globe, English National Opera, The Barbican, The Wellcome Trust and innumerable museums. He is the British Council literature department's special advisor on storytelling, and has featured as guest storyteller in over 45 International Storytelling festivals in 23 countries. Since 2001 he has been the official storyteller for Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble project, devising family concerts combining stories and music for performances to audiences of up to 10,000 people. He is a consultant and researcher, and has made field-trips to study epic singing traditions in Northern and Central India and in Central Asia.

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