Rattle Tales was started by a collective of eleven Brighton based writers who wanted to bring new writing to the stage. It’s now well-established in Brighton and Hove, a place where you can meet many writers who, with little prompting, will tell you about the stories they are not managing to find the time to write.
Such a good convivial evening, such outstanding talent
But here, this evening, are writers who have done the graft. And the audience now gets the pleasure of listening to them reading their stories out. Us humans find storytelling irresistible: it’s how we try to make sense of our world and allow our imaginations to frolic.
Where does the rattle come into it? And the end of each story, audience members can rattle a rattle (provided on the tables) if they wish, to show appreciation or to use as a noisy hand-raise to ask the writer questions or give opinions.
The evening was as usual at The Brunswick in Hove. It’s like a night out at the pub, but with decent stories rather than the ramblings of a beer-bore or a wine-whiner. It was hosted well by poet Deborah Turnbull who kicked the evening off by reading out one of her own poems (it was good) before moving on to introduce the writers.
There were nine writers and nine stories in all. There was a wide range from Noam Berman’s intriguing Story Machine about a story-dispensing device at a train station to a comically moving tale of an elderly man not managing to rescue in Rescue by Edward Rowe, to Lulu Allison’s compassionate portrait of an unknown boy in Nothing to Do In August. There was anguish in John Herbert’s poignant and sympathetic The Plunge and a baby nurtured in a jar in Jo West’s sharply observant Growing Simon. Death by wasp of a bitter bigot featured in Stephen Tuffin’s funny but actually rather sad The Glorious and Much Celebrated Death of William Muggs and Lel Meleyal’s Mise En Scene was playful and clever. Ingrid Jenrzweski’s We Were Curious About Boys set in mid-west America was beautifully read, a fantastic story about female friendship and how women are scrutinised, while Naomi Robert’s gloriously funny and macabre genius of a story Four Toes produced a visceral response from the audience.
Such a good convivial evening, such outstanding talent and a wide range of story material. If you love stories and good quality writing this is highly recommended. Can I tell you about the story I’m currently not writing now?
