Alan Dall and The Sea of Stories

About the show

“Alan Dall and the Sea of Stories” is an exciting new show from Mike O’Connor and Barbara Griggs. It comprises dramatic tales from Celtic Lands, told in words and music, with harp violin and concertina.

Mike and Barbara are not only great storytellers and musicians, they are also both accomplished offshore sailors. In this show, their tales are set on the sea, in the sea, and beside the sea. They are rich with insight. They are engaging, exciting, moving and amusing. The audience is taken on a voyage of adventure, drama and magic, but they are always brought safely home.

Since the Bronze Age, bards have declaimed battle honours, genealogies, histories and stories, both to entertain and also to endorse the positions of their rulers. By camp fires and hearths, families told tales to entertain and to educate both adults and children. As late as the nineteenth century, travelling storytellers in Cornwall told tales in return for bed and board.

Mike O’Connor OBE is a well known storyteller, with a deep knowledge of legend and folk tale, and a great skill with language. A bard of Gorsedh Kernow, he is respected as a violinist, song writer and musicologist, and is known to many for his music for “Poldark”.

Barbara Griggs is a skilled and sensitive musician and a fine storyteller. She too is a bard as well as being a Gorsedh harpist. Her music has been described as having “breath-taking” beauty. She is the expert on costume and custom, and with Mike, has worked to integrate words, sound effects and music to high praise.

Mike and Barbara’s “Return to Lyonesse” won a British Award for Storytelling Excellence and “Odysseus Dreaming” was an acclaimed retelling of Homer.

The show lasts 90 minutes, with two 45-minute halves. It is family friendly and best suited to children of 12 and over.