WOSAS : F639
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WOSAS/CD216/track8
R681.wav
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Thirty Thousand Chinese
Grandmothers
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Sound recording, story; Thirty Thousand
Chinese Grandmothers, a wonder tale told by Verena Keable at the
sixth West London Storytelling Unit Clubnight, at Common Stock
Theatre, Hammersmith, London, 13th November 1983
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Story told by Verena Keable. A poor Chinese
couple dig up a magic jar from their garden. They find that if
anything is dropped into the jar, the jar will instantly be
filled with duplicates of that item. This earns them scrubbing
brushes, then copper coins, then silver coins, until one day the
old women who was helping them, suffered a stroke whilst leaning
into the jar and fell in herself. The couple bury the old women,
only to return home to find the jar filled with another dead old
women. They then spend all of their money burying old women,
until they decide to break the jar.
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audience:-
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adult; contributing storytellers
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recording quality
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condition:-
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fair
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completeness:-
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complete
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duration:-
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0 hours, 9 minutes, 56 seconds
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The West London Storytelling Unit Clubnights or The Storytelling
Unit Clubnights were begun by Ben Haggarty, TUUP and Daisy Keable
in 1982 shortly after beginning to work together as the West
London Storytelling Unit (W.L.S.T.U). They took place on roughly
a fortnightly basis during the atumn and winter months, in
community centres in Acton, Shepherds Bush and Hammersmith. The
clubnights were an opportunity for anyone to come and tell a
story, or perform music on the condition that it had a toe-hold
in tradition. The performance of original poetry and the reading
of original writing was actively discouraged as there were plenty
of other fora for 'new writing' elsewhere in London. In 2007 Ben
Haggarty explained that the clubnight format was in part inspired
by the College of Storytellers, but with the aim of doing
something less bourgeois, for a younger audience and which was
not dominated by Idries Shah's mission to promote his vision of
Sufi storytelling. The clubnights also took inspiration from the
anarchy of the London Musicians Collective clubnight events in
Camden. The clubnights led Ben Haggarty to inaugurate the First
UK International Storytelling Festival at Battersea Arts Centre
in London in January 1985. After the 1985 festival a few further
clubnights were run, before ending in 1986. The clubnights were
superseded by the formation of the Company of Storytellers who
pioneered the touring of adult evening shows throughout the UK,
and by the formation of the Crick Crack Club in 1987, which
focused on the programming and development of professional
storytellers, their performance skills and their repertoire for
adult audiences.
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storytelling:-
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storyteller: Verena Keable
female / British
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origin:-
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China
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Images of clubnight events at Common Stock Theatre
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White master-copy of flyer for clubnight 6, clubnight 7 and
clubnight 8.
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Green version of flyer for clubnight 6, clubnight 7 and clubnight
8.
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Click to enlarge images
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administration:-
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storyteller; promoter: Ben Haggarty
storyteller: Daisy Keable; Georgiana Jerstad; Georgiana Keable
storyteller; musician: TUUP; Godfrey Duncan
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storytelling:-
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Hammersmith, London, England: Common Stock Theatre
13 Nov 1983
storytelling club: West London Storytelling Unit Clubnight
storytelling club: Clubnight 6
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gift from:-
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storyteller: Ben Haggarty
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© The London Centre for International Storytelling:
2007