Storytelling at the Feast of Fools: Phil Okwedy - "The Gods are All Here"

First Northampton visit by this internationally renowned storyteller from Wales

Presented by: Storytelling at the Feast of Fools

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0	NORTHAMPTON: Quaker Meeting House
P	Wednesday 3rd July, 2024
N	7:00pm

Event information

Phil Okwedy is a Welsh performance storyteller and myth-maker, Cardiff-born to a Welsh mother and Nigerian father, who draws deeply on his dual heritage and multiple cultures in his performances across Wales, England and internationally.
"The Gods are All Here" was built after finding love letters from his father to his mother, when Phil was clearing her house. Extracts from these form the backdrop to this performance mixing personal experience of growing up as a child of dual heritage in 1960's and 70's Wales with myths, folktales and song from the African diaspora. He considers if his parents were, in fact, the gods which, as children often will, he had believed them to be.
Audience who have seen it have described the performance as:
"Superb storytelling, combining personal, traditional and reimagined stories in a unique way. Very moving and gripping throughout, you always want to know 'what happens next'.”
"spectacularly crafted"
"Highlight of this year’s Beyond the Border Festival!”
And our Feast of Fools committee members who saw this show in Oxford last year were just as keen; since then, everyone we’ve spoken to who’s seen it has raved about it too, generally emphasising the words “Just go and see it!”
So now we've managed to book Phil Okwedy to come all the way to Northampton, to perform “The Gods are All Here” for us, so you can indeed just go and see it for yourselves.

Phil says: My work is driven by a sense of absence and a need for relevance. When I began to tell stories, I felt this as an absence of a tradition that I could tell from; an absence of a tradition I could easily connect with; an absence, in fact, of a cultural myth: Welsh but not quite Welsh, Igbo but never having lived in Nigeria, born in Cardiff but a stranger to Butetown where my father lived while in Wales and where my sister was born, I have felt compelled to try and make the old stories, the folk tales and fairy tales, relevant in some way. So, at the heart of The Gods Are All Here are the questions that myth has always sought to answer – questions that are always relevant: Who am I? Who are we? And, what does it mean to be human? In mixing together personal story, family history, folktale and myth these old stories have contemporary resonance and relevance and can provide the starting point for other stories to emerge and other voices to find their place.

We very much look forward to welcoming Phil, and to welcoming as many of you as possible to see this performance in the lovely surroundings of Northampton's Quaker Meeting House, among the famously friendly Feast of Fools atmosphere, also enjoying the equally justly famous FoF excellent home-baked cakes, and raffle! A proper mix of Real Life pleasures.

This will be our last meeting of this session before we take our usual August break - don't miss it, nor our return in September with Simon Heywood's acclaimed "Out of the Silence"

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