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Thirty Thousand Chinese Grandmothers

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

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.

audience:- adult; contributing storytellers
    recording quality
condition:- fair
completeness:- complete
duration:- 0 hours, 9 minutes, 56 seconds

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 The clubnights were superseded by the formation of the Company of Storytellers who pioneered the touring of adult evening shows throughout the UK, and by the formation of the Crick Crack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.

storytelling:- storyteller: Verena Keable
female / British

origin:- 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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administration:- storyteller; promoter: Ben Haggarty
storyteller: Daisy Keable; Georgiana Jerstad; Georgiana Keable
storyteller; musician: TUUP; Godfrey Duncan


storytelling:- Hammersmith, London, England: Common Stock Theatre
13 Nov 1983
storytelling club: West London Storytelling Unit Clubnight
storytelling club: Clubnight 6


gift from:- storyteller: Ben Haggarty


©  The London Centre for International Storytelling: 2007
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