Events
WATCH:
Sally Pomme Clayton and Sophie Herxheimer talk about The Mighty Goddess at Watkins Bookshop
The Bog King’s Daughter – swan maids, shield maidens and a rattling bog!
Pomme’s inventive re-telling of a little known Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale. Created for The Hans Christian Andersen Story Centre, New York.
The Little Mermaid – how a mermaid is liberated from tail, legs and tongue and set free!
Under the virtual Hans Christian Andersen Statue, Central Park, New York
Storytelling Synchronicity – storytellers Katy Cawkwell, Pomme Clayton, Hugh Lupton, Emily Hennessy, Rebecca Smart share stories about strange synchronous events that have happened when they have told stories. Hosted by Katy Cawkwell with Literature Works. Watch the flm and add your own story.
LISTEN:
Podcast with The Bloomsbury Festival about The Magician’s Apprentice.
Podcast with Storytelling Radio – Norway’s Fortellerhuset and Georgiana Keable about female archetypes, making The Frog Princess Punked and Eros and Psyche.
READ:
The Mighty Goddess – world myths by Sally Pomme Clayton and Sophie Herxheimer
EVENTS:
The King with Dirty Feet
Monday Sept 25, 11- 11.30; 12.15 – 12.45
Chelsea Physic Garden, 66 Royal Hospital Road, London, SW3 4HS
For families with children under 5. Come and take your shoes off, feel the grass beneath your toes and listen to a story. Find out why the King has dirty feet and what he going to do about it! Learn about a very important invention, and discover why dirt is vital for life on earth! Funny, silly and interactive. This story is full of joining in. The performance lasts 30 minutes. Tickets need to be bought for a specific time slot.
Info and tickets £10.00 (includes entry to garden)
Writing the Ancestors – walking and writing
30 September, 11.00am – 1,.00pm
West Norwood Cemetery, Norwood Road, West Norwood ,London, SE27 9JU
An original and thought provoking creative workshop where we will explore ideas of heritage – personal and local, imagined and actual. Inspired by the surroundings of the cemetery we will draw on: our senses; memories; inventions; snippets of history; the mystery of the cemetery, and the stories of our our own ancestors. This workshop is for adults and 16+ only. The theme of the walk and its environment means that it will touch on memories of the past and of people we have loved and lost. Please bring a pen and a notebook, and all weather clothes! Tickets free but must be booked. Places limited.
The Mighty Goddess
Sunday October 1, 19.30 – 21.30
The Cavendish Arms. 128 Hartington Road, Stockwell, London, SW8 2HJ
In the tiny ballroom at The Cavendish Arms meet The Mighty Goddess for electrifying, soulful storytelling. These goddess myths are sly, subversive, spectacular, and for adults only! Discover: Vesta the fiery virgin; Cybele, the mother goddess who fathered a child; Ishtar, Goddess of Love and War who journeys to the Land of the Dead. Follow the goddess from creator to crone in tales of lust and greed, death and destruction, transformation and rebirth. This performance is for ADULTS ONLY – and contains graphic content. The space is small and tickets are limited. Tickets £10.00
The Magician’s Apprentice
Thursday 5 October, 19.30 – 21.30
The Story Museum, 42 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP
Pomme opens the magician’s suitcase and finds smoke, mirrors, the King of the Jinns and the greatest female magician of all! In this slight-of-hand world, objects talk, girls become doves, the magician goes mad and the audience all get a spell to take home! Join the fairytale quest for real magic. This performance is also available to watch online. Tickets £14.00
Cheltenham Literature Festival
Monday 9 October 20:30 -21:30
The Hive, Cheltenham
The Mighty Goddess is coming to Cheltenham Literature Festival as part of an event exploring the wisdom in myth and folklore. Tickets £11.00
Death and the Maiden
Wednesday 11 October, 18.30 – 20.00
St Johns Church, Waterloo Rd, London SE1 8TY
Stories and masterclass – part of Vanessa Woolf and London Dreamtime’s new ‘Space for Storytelling’ project. I will tell stories from the rare gem that is the epic of Dede Korkut, including the tale of warrior Princess Saljan. This will be followed by discussion and questions. Let’s explore the rhythms and narrative structures, characters and images of traditional stories together. Info and tickets.
The Mighty Goddess
Friday October 27 2023, 19.00.pm Grassi Museum, Leipzig, Imagine Festival
Saturday October 28 17.00 Societaetstheater, Dresden, Imagine Festival
Meet the awe-inspiring goddess in electrifying, soulful storytelling. Info and tickets.
The Mighty Goddess
Wednesday 8 November, 19:30 – 21.30
Capstone Theatre, Liverpool Hope University, 17 Shaw St, Liverpool L6 1HP
Sly and subversive, dark and outrageous these myths are for adults only! Meet: Vesta the fiery virgin; Cybele, the mother goddess who fathered a child; Ishtar, Goddess of Love and War who journeys to the Land of the Dead. Follow the goddess from creator to crone in tales of lust and greed, death and destruction, transformation and rebirth. This performance is for ADULTS ONLY – and contains graphic content. Tickets £11.50
The Mighty Goddess
Sunday 19 November, 14.30 -16.30
The Crick Crack Club Epic Sundays, The British Museum, Great Russell St, London, WC1B 3DG
Electrifying, soulful storytelling. Follow the goddess from creator to crone in tales of lust and greed, death and destruction, transformation and rebirth. This performance is for ADULTS ONLY – and contains graphic content. Tickets £10.00
The Magician’s Apprentice
Friday 24 November, 19.30 – 21.30
Front Room, Weston-Super-Mare, BS23 1FF
I am so thrilled to be taking this show back to its place of origin! This show begins with a true story. I was nine years old and went to Weston-Super-Mare pier and became a magician’s apprentice! The magic went horribly wrong and I have been searching for real magic ever since. Locals to West-Super-Mare please spread the word about this very special show. You will meet the King of the Jinns and the most powerful female magician of all, Elena the Wise, and everyone gets a tarot card and a magic spell to take home! Come and join the fairytale quest for real magic. Tickets £10.00
SELECTED PAST EVENTS:
The Mighty Goddess – with Sally Pomme Clayton and Sophie Herxheimer
Tuesday Sept 12, 19.00, Chener Books, 14 Lordship Ln, East Dulwich, London, SE22 8HN
Myth and art combine as Pomme and Sophie share stories and spells, poems and paper-cutting, discussion and book signing https://www.chenerbooks.com/
The Magician’s Apprentice
Talliston House & Gardens, Great Dunmow, Essex Friday 28 July 2023
A secret gig, in a very special place!
The Mighty Goddess with Sally Pomme Clayton and Sophie Herxheimer
Watkins Bookshop
Thursday 13 July 2023, 17.30
Beyond the Border
Friday 7 July – Sunday 9 July 2023 Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire (SA19 6RT)
The Mighty Goddess and The Bog King’s Daughter
The Mighty Goddess – with Sally Pomme Clayton and Sophie Herxheimer
Avant Garden Gig, Brockwell Barn, Brockwell Park
Sunday 2 July 2023 6 – 9 pm
Avant garden spoken word, food and music in the lovely new venue inside Brockwell Park. The event Includes stories, spells poems and papercuts from The Mighty Goddess.
East Anglian Storytelling Festival
Friday 12 – Sunday 14 May 2023, Food Museum, Stowmarket.
I will be performing The Mighty Goddess for adults and The Bog King’s daughter for families!
All Good Bookshop
Friday 19 May 2023 7.30pm, 35 Turnpike Lane, London N8 0EP
Book launch for The Mighty Goddess with Sophie Herxheimer, stories and spells, poems and papercutting, chat and book signing.
West Norwood Cemetery
Saturday 20 May 2023 part of ChoooseSE27 day
Persephone – a story walk. A story walk through the historic cemetery on a specially chosen route that ends at the Greek Necropolis. Pomme will tell the ancient Greek myth of Persephone on the walk, stopping every now and then to tell you the next instalment! We will look at the Greek and Roman influence on the graves as we go, from columns to acanthus leaves. Follow Persephone as she travels to the underworld and back.
West Horsley Place
One Thousand and One Nights with Olivia Armstrong and Sally Pomme Clayton
Take a tour through this incredible house with two storytellers and hear tales of ghosts, magic and the other world. 20 and 21 April 2023 Performance last an hour repeated at 5pm, 6.30, 8.00pm tickets here.
The White Bear King
Story – Sally Pomme Clayton / Songs – Helen Chadwick
Saturday 17 December 18.30
Exeter Custom House, Exeter, EX2 4AN
Hosted by Literature Works, Quay Words.
Storyteller and writer Sally Pomme Clayton and singer and composer Helen Chadwick weave together words and songs, images and sounds, to conjure the eternal quest for love. They take you on a snowy journey through a dark, Scandinavian fairytale with a polar bear and a princess, and songs drawing on poetry from Rumi to Emily Dickinson. The story is intertwined with Helen’s illuminating songs, that can slow down time, bring images or emotions to life. Magical, humorous and tinged with darkness this performance is for adults and young people aged 12 and upwards. Tickets
The Magician’s Apprentice
Thursday 20 October 7.00pm – 9.10pm (including an interval)
The Bloomsbury Festival at The Museum of Comedy,
The Undercroft, St Georges Church,
Bloomsbury Way, London, WC1A 2SR
In this perfect tiny theatre, with red velvet curtain explore the secret world of the magician with pioneering storyteller and writer Sally Pomme Clayton. This intimate, enchanting performance mixes: fact with fiction; fragments of myth with antique jokes; dazzling fairytales and snippets of culture and science; forgotten folklore with mysterious images on tarot cards. Casting a shimmer of stories, with a song on her mandolin and a spotted handkerchief, a top hat from a junk shop and a mail-order wand, she shifts from humour to horror, romance to rumour, searching for real magic. 2 x 50 mins with an interval. Tickets
The Magician’s Apprentice
Saturday 30 July 7.45
Omnibus Theatre Clapham
Join Pomme on her fairytale quest to discover what is real and what illusion, who is the apprentice and who the teacher. 2 x 50 mins with an interval. Tickets
Crow Blood Snow
Friday 22 July 2022, 19.30
Contact marionleeper@gmail.com for tickets and address.
Cambridge
Saturday 23 July 2022, 8pm
Stapleton Farm Barn, Aylsham, Norfolk NR11 6GR
Tickets £10, email hughlupton@gmail.com to book tickets
Black as crow, red as blood, white as snow are colours seared into many fairytales summoning creation, destruction and redemption. This performance takes place at dusk in a Cambridge garden and conjures contradictory Crow, from: sparkling creation to a bloody battle between the birds and the beasts; hints of Snow White to the terrifying Valkyries; crazed tricks to lust gone wrong; utter destruction to regeneration. This darkly humorous performance weaves poetic language with song, strange musical sounds with a toy crow! Crow was there at the beginning, creates the Universe, warns of dangers, plays the fool, makes love, urges war, flies over the battlefield, brings peace, keeps memories, counts time, waits for doom, is the matter of the land itself. Discover dangerous, devilish, divine Crow. Adults only.
2 x 50 mins with an interval.
The Mighty Goddess
Saturday 9 July
Rhythm Tree Festival, Sticelett Farm, Thorness Bay, Isle of Wight, PO31 8NE
Sally Pomme Clayton gives a sneak preview from her forthcoming book ‘The Mighty Goddess’ (2023) that collects together 50 goddess myths. The goddess has multiple forms that resonate across the world in one mighty being. She repeatedly appears as: creator; virgin; warrior; lover; mother; crone. This performance tells wild, feisty, tender, poetic and erotic global myths that follow the goddess from creator to crone. The myths are for adults only – these stories of the goddess have not been tamed. This performance is for ADULTS ONLY – graphic content. 60ish mins. straight through.
Girls and Goddesses
Saturday 5 March 11am -12.00 & 14.00pm- 15.00pm
Ealing Central Library
103 Ealing Broadway Centre London W5 5JY
Celebrate International Women’s day with storyteller Sally Pomme Clayton. Meet bold and gutsy heroines in stories from different parts of the world. These girls and goddesses face impossible tests, undo magic spells, and bring transformation. Some are clever, some are funny, some are foolish – all are brave! Tickets free but you need to book for a specific session:
Tickets for 11am – 12
Tickets for 14pm- 15pm
Flowing Words – Outdoor riverside creative writing workshop.
Sunday 26 September, 11.00am- 12.30pm Wapping
Waterside Gardens, 104-106 Wapping High St, London E1W 2PR
For adults and children aged 12 upwards (children must come with an adult.) With the Thames Festival Trust. A creative writing journey using: observation; walking; the senses; memories; histories; dreams; imagination, to give voice to the River Thames and its stories. The workshop is also about helping you get into a creative flow, which allows thoughts and images to arise, so you can make your own river of words.
Once Upon A Time – How Fairytales Travel
Tuesday 18 May 2021, 11.00 – 12.00, Online
Hosted by Brent Library – Reading Friends
A performance/talk/workshop all rolled into one hour! Discover why fairytales are living literature. Sally Pomme will tell you some stories, introduce you to the idea of the oral tradition and talk about how versions of similar stories can be found across the world, and how, and perhaps why, the human imagination creates and re-creates these ancient stories. The session will end with a small creative wriitng exercises where you can explore your own memories of fairytales and what they might mean to you. Free but booking needed.
TALES FROM THE STATUE – a radio programme I made with producer Arlene Gregorius.
BBC Radio 4 Extra March 9th 2021 2.30pm, 10th March 2.30 pm
You will also be able to listen on BBC Sounds afterwards.
Tales from the Statue was made in 2003 it is about the Hans Christian Anderson statue in New York’s Central Park. For over 40 years there has been storytelling beside this statue, started by US storyteller Diane Wolkstein. The programme interviews several tellers from the US who have performed at the statue, including Laura Simms, and discusses the value of listening and imagining with UK storyteller Ben Haggarty. Diane died suddenly, doing what she loved, collecting stories. You can read more about her here. Diane has left behind a lasting legacy of stories she collected and translated. And the storytelling at the statue continues, and is now being programmed by the inspirational Laura Simms.
The Phoenix of Persia
Edinburgh Book Festival
August 12 10.30 am
Stories of the Simorgh, including the story from Sally Pomme’s latest book ‘The Phoenix of Persia’, and a snippet of The Conference of the Birds. The illustrator Amin Hassanzadeh Sharif will be doing special live drawing during the performance!
Mother Danube
Ships in the Night | Mother River, Father River
June 7 2019, 19.30
Cutty Sark Theatre, Ground Level, Lower Hold, Greenwich.
Sally Pomme Clayton and musician Emma Clare take a magical journey across Europe evoking the River Danube. A mythical meander along the Danube listening to stories, songs and music celebrating the vibrant, histories, cultures and heritage of the river. With Olivia Armstrong evoking tales of the River Thames and the history of the Cutty Sark itself, this evening celebrates Mother River, Father River.
The Phoenix of Persia – Book Launch with Tiny Owl
May 30 2019. 14.00
The British Library
Celebrate the launch of stunning new picture book The Phoenix of Persia with a spellbinding family storytelling event from author Sally Pomme Clayton. A legend from ancient Persia, the tale of Prince Zal and the Simorgh is a mythical exploration of forgiveness, family and what it means to be truly wise. This magical story is accompanied by an original musical performance, played on traditional Iranian instruments. Children can try out the instruments for themselves and experience their unique sounds. Followed by a book signing.
