Agony Uncle Robin Herne helps solve your dilemmas

Dear Robin,

My partner and I were on holiday outside the region recently and I dragged my partner to a storytelling event. We were disappointed to find that it was just someone reading ancient myths from a book. I felt a bit cheated, especially as we had paid. Am I making too much of this? And what are the ethics around storytelling in general? For example, when a movie company takes a historical story and then changes all the facts?

Fiona

Dear Fiona,

As a semi-professional storyteller myself, I certainly would not just read a story from a book – I aim to give a live performance rather than a scripted one (most storytellers do, in my experience).

However, there is some precedence for this.

I'm of an age to remember people such as Kenneth Williams and Jon Pertwee reading stories on Jackanory – though, as such, they didn't really read the stories in the way you mean.

Being trained theatricals, they clearly knew the stories from memory and brought them to life with verve and only used the book as a prop.

Charles Dickens was renowned for his readings of his own works, something which have been recreated in more recent times by Simon Callow and others.

Although he did refer to the book before him, Dickens had given the performances so many times, he had them almost by heart.

Arguably, there is a difference between storytelling and a scripted performance.

When I tell the story of the Tower of Vortigern, for example, the plot follows the same basic sequence but the way it is told changes each time, depending on the audience and the way the muse moves me.

There are people who learn a script and repeat it verbatim every single time the tale is told – which is more akin to acting than telling, at least for me.

Of course, it's worth noting that storytelling exists in more context than a person sitting round a campfire regaling listeners with mythology, folklore, and the like. A novelist writing a book, a scriptwriter producing a film, a dramatist writing a stage play are all telling stories (and there are plenty of other ways to tell stories too).

Clearly what you were expecting was the oral tradition of the campfire – but what you got was 'Listen with Mother', which does suggest a need for clearer advertising by the event managers.

When I finally get the current murder mystery manuscript finished and off to my publisher, I'm thinking of writing a book on the ethics of storytelling (I have a nose for a best seller, as you can doubtless tell).

Much of the current ethical thinking in this area tends to deal with oral histories and getting people to record or present their autobiographical narratives in a fair manner where they are respected rather than exploited – especially the kinds of people whom historians have traditionally paid little attention to (the working classes, women, ethnic minorities within a given country etc).

Ethics are less often applied to traditional myths, legends etc. Anyone who has seen a Hollywood historical film will know how it feels to be left wondering what on earth was going through the scriptwriters' minds when they decided to rewrite the history of another country to suit some strange American agenda.

One of the ethical issues involved is the debate over how we present other people's stories (or even our own), which goes hand-in-glove with the notion of who owns a story in the first place.

Myths form part of the cultural history of both ethnicities and religious movements.

Telling the stories of a particular people (whether defined by their nationality or their religion) needs to be done with a degree of consideration – if done poorly, it can be a trifle offensive, perhaps conveying the impression that the group in question don't have a history or culture worth putting much effort into conveying properly.

Some years back I attended an event which included an inexperienced teller who told a particular religious story, giving it a humorous spin and using some rather colourful language – essentially he told it as if it were a joke.

It did not seem to have dawned on him that some people in the audience followed that religion, and were rather offended by the realisation that he regarded their sacred story as daft and their revered icons as figures of ridicule.

This does not mean that performers cannot laugh with an audience – just not at them.

This is especially the case where the teller of a tale is not considered part of the culture from which the story hails. One of the benefits of booking someone with experience is that they will have hopefully considered all these sorts of issues already.

The event you visited may have hired an inexperienced storyteller or perhaps the person they were expecting to turn up was unwell so they had to ask someone else to step in at the last minute?

If the former, professional performers (be they singers, musicians, actors, jugglers, or whatever else) charge a living wage, which a number of event organisers cannot or perhaps just prefer not to afford.

So, they end up getting in someone with less experience who will do a turn for £5, just to help out, or for some nebulous offer of exposure.

Many people want the arts, but very few are prepared to pay for them which is an issue for us all.