Ummmmm.....

Our build has begun, and so have our attempts at learning a brand new language.

What's a flange?
Why does my brake cable need a nipple?
Where oh where does one find Birch flexi-ply?

Over the past week we have ordered steel, and stood awkwardly in a vast warehouse populated by a few, hard to find and rather taciturn men whilst it was cut to size. We have carefully and stiltedly read out our requirements to very helpful timber yards in Wales and Bristol like we are ordering from a menu in a foreign country. We have stood around, thinking, comparing, measuring and scratching our chins with our welder, Nathan, and have discussed the pros and cons of widths, wheels and wingnuts with our ever patient maker, Richard. On Tuesday we even stopped off between the bike shop and the metal yard to jump start a car. Hey, that's just how we roll.


It's a funny feeling, suddenly being without the right language. It takes all our courage to make each phone call or to step into each echoing workshop. We don't know the right words, the right questions to ask. And we are secretly elated when someone else offers to make the phone call instead of us.

But slowly, very slowly, we are finding our feet. We now say 'mil' instead of millimetres, and we don't even bother measuring things in inches. Pah, that's a mugs game. Having watched the frame grow out of the lengths of metal and bits of bike and having discussed flexi-ply 'til the cows come home, we are starting to understand a little of what we're talking about.  Which is a very good thing, because soon we will have a wonderful working barrow which comes apart into three pieces and needs to be reassembled lovingly and efficiently for each and every gig. And we will be ready, with an allan key (is that how you spell it?!) in one hand and an 8mm spanner in the other.

BRING IT ON!

Brace! Brace! Brace!

That eye catching title has hopefully lured you in. And now, let me explain. There's a lot to tell, so brace yourselves. We've had a very busy month! Also, I have just noticed that we've had well over 600 page views to our humble blog, so I'm feeling rather pleased that these words are not just being lost in the ether, but that someone somewhere might be having a little read. So without further ado...

What happened?

Since we last posted, some rather brilliant things have happened. Firstly, we found out that we had got our full Arts Council funding. Secondly, our Sponsume campaign surpassed all our hopes and with all that wonderful support we went just over our target. And thirdly, the project has just got underway. I know I've said this before, but the support we have received in getting this thing off the ground continues to humble and astound us. Thank you all so much.

But it's not all been about The Story Exchange, as Chloe and I recently spent a wonderful week in Dartington, supported by the Immerse programme. It was the start of Lines of Sight, a
collaboration with Chris Jones, and we spent the week sewing the first seeds of our idea and watching them grow a little bit. In brief, our week involved lots of walking, pinhole cameras, paint charts, camera obscura and drain pipes. Here are a few thoughts and images that we gathered along the way.

Sometimes we walked together, all three. Sometimes in pairs. Sometimes we walked hand in hand.

Sometime we talked complete crap. Sometimes it was profound. 

Often, it wasn’t.

We went to the Leechwell, where in centuries past lepers came to be healed. We left a token there. I didn’t see the white witch filling her empty coke bottle with spring water.

We saw a donkey with a skin complaint, an alleyway that had once teemed with frogs, a blackbird bathing in a puddle, Ash House, which had been renamed HASH house with one added letter.

We took some things. We took Vicky’s dog Jess, but when she was younger. We forgot Jess a lot. Sometimes we remembered and threw sticks for her. Sometimes we forgot her, and when someone else asked we pretended we had thrown sticks for her.

We took a paint chart made by English Heritage called 'Colours of England'.

Sometimes we played God and we moved millennia, one volcanic slate at a time down a deep lane.

Sometimes we left clues for one another, arrows made of twigs, notes, dandelion shrines, a glove holding a flower. 

Once we walked blind, with one seeing person leading, and we saw the journey in our minds eye. Sometimes we were so dizzy it felt that we were falling off the face of the earth.

I drew you a map….

What's happening?

The project is finally underway- in fact, we are nearly at the end of phase one- DESIGN. The lovely people at Kaleider have been supporting us right from the very beginning, and they very generously funded our dream space- three days in a creative space dreaming up ideas for the new barrow with our designer Sophia Clist, our maker Richard Pulman and our Production Assistant, Jemma Cholawo. And, just in case you were wondering, this is what three days in two different rooms with 6 artists, a lot of cardboard and two glue guns looks like....

 We don't want to give too much away, but suffice to say that we do have a new design, and as I type, the marvellous Sophia Clist is making a model, incorporating all the weird and wonderful things we have been playing with over the last two weeks. We are so fortunate to have such a lovely team working with us on this and with one more production meeting to go before the BUILD phase starts, we are feeling very very excited indeed.

But that's not all, oh no, because this past week has been a week of firsts, with our first tour date and our first Story Exchange workshop. So last Monday we popped off to Salisbury to open Theatre Fest West, with the help of an army of new recruits. Members of the Playhouse youth and Senior Theatre groups joined us for a fantastic two hour workshop, where characters were created, flash mobs were dreamed up and many great games were played, before we all hit the streets to inspire some creativity on a very rainy, grey Monday. We were so impressed by our workshop participants, they were absolutely up for everything we threw at them.

What on earth is going to happen next?

We have loads more coming up, including our launch party on 31st May for all our supporters where the new barrow shall finally be revealed. Then we will be starting our PLAY phase where we will be developing new work for different spaces and for our community workshops (we will also be inviting Kilter Theatre down to run a workshop for us). And of course, we have a busy summer of touring ahead, so if you would like to catch us in action, here is where you can find us.

• 25th May Exmouth Festival
• 26th May Braunton Fair
• 31st May Family Saturday Exeter Phoenix
• 4-7th June Ignite, Exeter Library
• 14th June Lord Mayors Party, Birmingham City Centre
• 15th June Fuse Festival, Kent
• 20th-21st June Barnstaple Fringe
• 6th July Cornbury Festival, Oxfordshire
• 18th-20th Larmerr Tree, Devon (TBC)
• 30th and 31st August Mint Fest, Kendal

There, I do believe that's about it. Hope you're enjoying a bit of sunshine wherever you are.

From little sparks grow great stories

We have been amazed, humbled and inspired by the support we have had for our Sponsume campaign (if you've managed to miss the bombardment and would like to take a look at our gloriously silly video made by the gloriously talented-and-silly Chris Jones, look no further than here) and we are so very close to reaching our target £943! When we began this process we all thought that getting up to £1000.00 was rather optimistic, but oh boy have you all shown us the meaning of generosity. We love the thought that all our sponsors have invested in our project, and we hope that they will have invested more than money- we hope that when our creation sets off across the country, that you will be as proud as we.

Our rewards for our donors reflect the ideals of The Story Exchange- that the joy of a story is in the sharing. So, we have been happily putting pen to paper and writing all manner of weird and (hopefully) wonderful stories and limericks to thank our supporters. But as it is the story EXCHANGE, we have also been inviting the recipients of OUR creations to respond in kind, in anyway that they might like, to create a story for someone else. And here are a few of our favourite responses....

This is Jane Mason's beautiful, lyrical response to a funny little story we wrote for her about an empty boat coming in on the morning tide...

All she could remember was the letter she'd received in strange writing. 

She'd hidden it. After spending so much time reading it over and over, it was an act of self preservation. No more repetition!

Recalling the part half way down the page with the memory of wind. Of a cliff top. No, not a cliff top, somewhere down close to the sea wall steps, worn, smoothed out from the lapping and the constant tidal surf. There was a boat, was there really a boat? it would be blue, blue with a red band around it and a wooden shelf for her things. Neatly tucked away, there'd be nuggets of treasure, rocks, bits of shell, something found thats traveled miles and miles and miles. 

The letter wasn't about traveling outside, it was about a freedom you could find anywhere.  Maybe it was about the impossible and the possible. 

Here at home, in familiar spaces, a kind of longing stirred just below the surface. Not for boats. Not for walking. Not for tourism or forest dens.  Something softer, quieter, just under the surface. Where no one could see. A reaching out. A single touch over the contours of a shoulder. A tracing of a passing.

Later when it was night time. The birds were still singing. The air was cooler but the remains of the day still visible. 

She thought to herself. It's all alright. There is somewhere to go. There is always somewhere to go to. 

And Kevin Jones provided us with this rather charming update, after we stranded him in a log cabin in his personalised adventure story, after a mysterious lady-spy made off with his yellow plane (called IVOR).....

Having got used to my situation I have found being abandoned in a log cabin in the middle of a wood  to be rather pleasant. The cabin has a very comfortable bed, a good shower, is well stocked with food, has an extensive library of books, plus a DAB radio with excellent reception of the two Radio 4's. I have found some decent walks, including one to a little lake which, I suspect, is well stocked with fish. If I can find a fishing rod somewhere in the cabin I shall try my hand at fishing. A nice fat trout for tea would be...nice.

     

The weather continues to be surprisingly good so I am treating my enforced stay here as a restful holiday. If I ever I start getting bored I shall look into trekking out, but for the time being, you will be pleased to hear, that I am perfectly content. Indeed, rather grateful to you for putting me into such a pleasant environment.

    

 I suppose there is always a chance that Jackie will return with IVOR in which case leaving will be relatively easy. However, if she is coming back I don't mind if she takes her time.

Well, that's all for now, thanks again, don't forget to light your blins and grummuk your taddies, at least once a day.

Sound advice there, I think you'll agree. And also, this from one of our earliest sponsors, the wonderful Kelly Johnson, who wrote this for her mum who was just moving house....

There once was a woman called Viv
Whose memory was just like a sieve
She wrote down 'The Stables' 
On hundreds of labels
' Case she forgot where she did now live!

We hope our sponsors are as happy with our offerings as we have been with theirs!

In other news, we have had a very exciting pre project meeting bringing together Sophia Clist (designer), Richard Pulman (maker) and Jemma Cholawo (our magnificent production assistant), for the very first time. We haven't done this before. We knew it would be a bit of a gamble. Luckily, we truly believe that it is already beginning to pay off, as the meeting joyfully overran and overflowed with ideas. Our dream space begins next Monday, where we shall dare to dream impossible dreams, and make a big mess with lots of STUFF.

Man vs. Monster and other stories

 Belinda the barrow has been out and about in all weathers this weekend, and we have been having lots of fun with you good people of Exeter. First stop, Exeter Northcott, where we had been invited along to add some Story Exchange style fun to their rather wonderful Family Fun Day. Luckily our story exchanger Ben Simpson was on hand with his land rover to drive Belinda up the VERY steep hill. As you can see from the picture, she fits perfectly......
 And the other thing you might spot in the picture is  rather strangely coloured sky. Yes, not GREY and DINGY like you might expect, but a rather bright blue. AND there was a big warm thing up there, kind of like a giant ball of fire, that made us all feel inexplicably..well...happy! So much so that we made it outside and made up some fantastically bonkers stories with some expert story tellers, including one set on an island, on the moon, at 8 in the morning in 1940.  Seriously creative stuff!

Today you'll be glad to hear that the sky was back to it's normal grey self, with plenty of clouds and drizzle to keep us all damp on a Monday morning, and we have had a wonderful day spreading some cheer and some stories and some wishes and some riddles.. We were out and about (well, in under cover but definitely about) at the Guildhall Shopping Centre today, creatively bridging the gap between Animated Exeter and Exetreme Imagination. We collided these two fabulous festivals by creating a new game, Frame by Frame, in which we challenged young writers and budding artists to DRAW us a story, picture by picture, which we would then act out with plenty of enthusiasm, a few cacti and a lot of dragons.

Story Exchange regulars will be familiar with our Tall tales, stories written by the public one word at a time, and todays tale was pretty wacky, featuring red skyscrapers, bumping bottoms and a gorilla stealing bananas with a 'sardonic grin'. (Personal favourite phrase at the end there). Oh, and today we welcomed Kelly Miller onto our staff. Kelly plays Poppy, a dreamy young lady with a passion for Haikus and in her spare time she likes to snuggle.


 One of my favourite questions to answer (and we get asked to answer this pretty much every time we perform) is 'Why are you doing this?' Today I was asked this by a particularly lovely young story exchanger, clutching a wish bird, having just written her one word on our tall tale, and who was now drawing her frame by frame adventure whilst her dad made a technology free tweet. I thought for a moment, then said, 'Because it's fun. Because it makes people smile, and because it's a bit silly, and I think that we should do more things that make people happy.' I couldn't tell if she was convinced, so I asked her 'Is that a good enough reason?' She looked up at me. 'Of course!' she replied, laughing, as if I was silly to suggest that it might not be, and she skipped off to watch her story being performed. We've had a pretty brilliant day.

Ruth and Dan's wedding

 Congratulations Ruthie and Dan! You throw a cracking wedding. And big welcome to Lizzy and Ben, both of whom have thrown themselves right into the thick of it and are doing an amazing job. We love having them on the team, and couldn't have done this wedding without them! As I was lucky enough to be a guest at this wedding, leaving all the hard work to the wonderful Lizzy and Ben, I can't really tell you much about what went on, but here are a few pictures to give you an idea.




This was our first wedding, and a great opportunity to refine the show for a very different kind of day. We've discovered that The Story Exchange is great for getting conversations going with compliments to a stranger, and we also had lots of fun getting people to write memories and messages on blank postcards which they were then free to decorate. Of course we were placing wish birds in the care of many little hands, but this time all the wishes were for the newlyweds. And we also managed a one word story about Ruth and Dan, although I'm pretty sure none of that REALLY happened to them.


 And finally, although we can take no credit for this at all, here is a picture of the best wedding cake I have ever seen (or tasted). Decorated by the groom himself, it actually features usable, edible lego blocks. Best. Cake. Ever.

Family Sunday Fun at the Phoenix

Hello! We are The Story Exchange, and its lovely to see so many excited faces. And I believe you're here to hear some spooky story telling? Great. Well, you've come to the right place, because stories are what we do best. Now, Freddie, do you have the story? No? Oh.........



Luckily for us, our audience turned out to be story telling experts (wish they'd have told us THAT sooner) and together we penned (and performed) a terrifying tale of kind witches, nasty witches, enchanted trees and bubbling cauldrons. Our story began in a spooky house on the stroke of midnight, complete with necessary rustling trees and hooting owls, and our friendly any-kind-of-witch is hard at work, brewing potions.


Nearby, however, a coven of ghastly nasty witches (with fantastically scary faces) are also hard at work, brewing evil potions that can turn people to ice. All ends happily though, with the help of a magical moving tree, some beautiful flowers and a very convincing cauldron, and the nasty witches become really rather friendly, just in time.

This was the barrows first outing to the Phoenix, and we had a wonderful time, and hope to return in the near future! Thank you to all our expert story makers, monster artists and wish bird owners, and to our lovely back row of enthusiastic adults who offered up some marvellous sound effects.


Next stop for Belinda the Barrow and the Exchange staff- Ruth and Dan's wedding!

All photographs by Chris Jones, www.chrisjonesdop.com

Fail. Fail Again. Fail Better

an uplifting picture of a leaf

Fail. Fail again. Fail Better. This was the title of our Kaleider lunch time talk, borrowed from Mr Samuel Beckett, and setting the theme of the hour. At first glance, it sets a rather sombre tone. In the context of looking back at our years' work, it could suggest that we have achieved..well... very little and that we are feeling a little blue about Theatre Rush. But, no. We used today's opportunity to take an honest and challenging look at the way we've done things in the past, allowing us to take stock of the present, and more importantly perhaps, to look forward to the untold possibilities that the future might hold. We have been through a time of transition. At times, we have been slogging through against the rain, with soggy trousers (nothing worse), but we have found ourselves starting out on a spring morning, with a little mist starting to lift, and it all looks rather nice out there. (The full version of this analogy, featuring a wagon and a horse, can be obtained from Miss Chloe Whipple's wonderful brain. Maybe buy her a peppermint tea with a spoonful of honey, and she can tell you all about it.)

a slightly less inspiring, but none-the-less apt, diagram

Now Chloe and I are not natural public speakers. Despite our willingness, nay, enthusiasm, to get up on stage and say and do all manner of things, we find the prospect of speaking, lecturing, speech-making rather terrifying. So, early in our preparation for today, we decided that THAT is what we're about. We can't hide that. Like the absurd honesty that delighted some of our audience members in FLUSHED, we agreed that the only way to give an honest appraisal of ourselves and our work is to discuss our vulnerability, to declare how awkward we feel, as quite self deprecating human beings, with the mantle of any kind of 'expert' and to face head on that niggling brain worm that drills into our grey matter with the very helpful doubt, 'why would anyone be interested in what YOU have to say?'

a mushroom= hidden depths & connections

So we used the tools we use in our work, and began the session by asking everyone to write a compliment to someone else in the room on a slip of paper. There were no strangers, but there were people we knew well, and others less so. We encouraged people to write something specific to someone of the latter. And after the 'talk', we played a game of consequences and generated some bizarre tales and a lot of laughter. (You can always tell a good game of consequences, when people make THEMSELVES laugh with their own ideas). We like to do this. No, we love to do this, and on a very basic, simple level, it is right at the heart of the work we have made, and that which we dream of making next.

We were blessed with a wonderful group of kind and like minded individuals today, sandwiches in hand, who allowed us to blush and bluster our way through, and there was a lot of blushing. On a complete tangent, if anyone can explain to me the genetic point of blushing I would really appreciate it. And at the end of it, despite the theme of failure, and the deep exploration of the things that hadn't quite worked over the past year, we left the Kaleider office today with a spring in our step and a sense of stomach tingling optimism.

We are so very excited about all the opportunities that this year could hold. Already things that we have grafted for, and that have seemed burdensome and onerous, are starting to open up and we find ourselves surrounded by choices. In sharing with others our enthusiasm, our love for making people happy, the joyful interruptions we have created, we have started to rekindle that passion in ourselves. So thank you Kaleider, for giving us the platform to speak and to listen and to question, and to come out feeling like we CAN do it. And we will.