| WOSAS : F979 |
WOSAS/CD309/track1 & WOSAS/CD310/track1 R1036.wav R1037.wav |
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Gilgamesh
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Epic of Gilgamesh, The
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| Sound recording, story, Gilgamesh, a version of the Sumerian epic cycle, myth and legend, told by Ben Haggarty, accompanied by Tunde Jegede, in a Crick Crack Club at The South Bank Centre event, in The Voice Box at the The South Bank Centre, London, 26th May 1993 | |
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| Introduction, followed by story told in two parts, by Ben Haggarty, accompanied by Tunde Jegede on the Kora (West African harp), followed by an announcement from Ben Haggarty about the next events at The Crick Crack Club at The South Bank Centre. The story tells of the birth of Gilgamesh and of his friend Enkidu, and their adventures toegther, often in conflict with gods and goddeses. Gilgamesh and Enkidu make a great journey to gather timber from a cedar forest, to fire kilns to make bricks, in order to build a great wall around the city of Uruk. Having completed this great task, Gilgamesh is approached by Ishtar, the goddess of love who seeks his hand in marriage. Rejected, she calls on the bull of heaven to punish Gilgamesh and in the fight which follows, Enkidu is fatally wounded. Having lost his friend and companion Gilgamesh sets out on a journey to seek out eternal life. He travels into the underworld to find Utnapishtim, the only human granted eternal life by the gods. When he finds Utnapishtim he is faced with the challenge to stay awake, as preparation for eternal life, but he fails, and returns empty handed to live as a mortal man and King of Uruk. | |
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| Gilgamesh is one of the oldest recorded stories in the world. Gilgamesh, an ancient King of Uruk, in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), lived at about 2700 B.C and his names survives on the Sumerian King List. Some of the stories of Gilgamesh were written down on clay tablets in 2000- 1500 B.C, in the Sumerian language. These Sumerian Gilgamesh stories were intergrated into a longer poem recorded in Akkadian, in the seventh century B.C, and stored in the famous library of King Assurbanipal, King of Assyria 669 - 633 B.C, and also on tablets written in Hurrian and Hittite. All the above languages were written in the script known as cuneiform, which means wedge-shaped. The fullest surviving verison of the story of Gilgamesh comes from 12 stone tablets in the Akkadian language, found in the ruins of the library of King Assurbanipa, at Nineveh, which was destroyed by the Persians in 612 B.C. | |
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| audience:- | adult |
| recording quality | |
| condition:- | good; fair |
| completeness:- | incomplete |
| duration:- | 1 hour, 25 minutes, 18 seconds |
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| The Crick Crack Club was founded by Ben Haggarty in 1987 and was the first regular performance storytelling club to be established in the UK. From the outset, the club operated with a programme of storytellers put in place by an artistic director, Ben Haggarty. It had no 'floor spots' whereby anyone had the opportunity to tell stories. The club was created in response to a recognised need for there to be sufficient UK storytellers to perform competent, formal evening shows for adult audiences in the proposed 1989, 15 day long, Third International Storytelling Festival at London's South Bank Centre. In the autumn of 1987 the first season of 26 weekly Crick Crack Club events was launched in a pub theatre (The Chair) in Ladbrook Grove, with the expressed aim of trying out new artists and providing an opportunity for established artists to develop their skills and repertoire for adults. Jenny Pearson of the Kew Storytellers helped Ben Haggarty with the organisation of this first season.The Crick Crack Club promoted weekly events in various venues in London between 1987 and 1995, and then monthly events at the Spitz from 1995 to 2001. During this time it also organised numerous monthly events and mini-festivals in regional arts venues throughout England. In 1991/92 wth £10,000 from the Arts Council Literature department it tried to establish a touring circuit promoting 120 events in a year. Daniel Morden gave invaluable administrative support during this period. In 1993, in partnership with David Ambrose of St. Donats Arts Centre in Wales, the Crick Crack Club Club created the Beyond the Border International Festival of Storytelling and Epic Singing. Ben Haggarty co-directed Beyond the Border from 1993 to 2005. Since 2001 the Crick Crack Club has worked on a peripatetic basis, programming in various venues and in partnership with various organisations, and in 2003 began a long-term partnership with Barbican Education in London, to promote 9 events a year in the Barbican Pit Theatre | |
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| storytelling:- |
storyteller: Ben Haggarty male / British / born 30.11.1958 |
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| storytelling:- |
musician: Tunde Jegede male / African |
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| origin:- |
Iraq
Mesapotamian Sumerian |
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| Programme note | |
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| Crick Crack Club season publicity | |
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| Ben Haggarty and Tunde Jegede in performance | |
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| Click to enlarge images | |
| programming & administration:- |
Crick Crack Club Artistic Director: Ben Haggarty |
| storytelling:- |
London, England: The South Bank Centre: The Voice Box
26 May 1993 public performance: The Crick Crack Club at The South Bank Centre storytelling club: The Crick Crack Club |
| gift from:- |
storyteller: Ben Haggarty |
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