Giles Abbott, Nawroz Oramari

Storytelling from the heart returns to the Tom Thumb Theatre.

Scandalnights at the Tom Thumb, hosted by the highly talented Emily Parrish, has been re-born as After Dark Tales, hosted by Roisin Murray, no mean tale-weaver herself. Leaving Kent for wedded bliss in the Lake District, Emily knew she could safely pass on the baton to Roisin, and entrust her with keeping aflame the beacon of exciting and high quality story performance in East Kent.

This month we join Giles Abbott and Kurdish singer Nawroz for "Tongues Of Flame: A Quest For The Unfamiliar", the story of Richard Francis Burton.It is a story that runs to the heart of Empire and travel. Beginning at the foot of his peculiar mausoleum in the form of a Bedouin tent in a Catholic church, my tale of the great and enigmatical explorer becomes a journey to the edge of the known world.

Burton was an Englishman fluent in over 40 languages, with the support of the The Royal Geographical Society he led an expedition to the true source of the Nile; he was the first non-Muslim to enter the holy city of Harar and he completed the Haj from Suez to Mecca. ……..Burton turned exploration into a practice of human freedom. These stories are complemented by the soaring, melancholic, and yearning vocals of the Iraqi Kurdish singer Nawroz Oramari.