A few drops of mead for good measure

It isn’t often that, within moments of sitting down in a venue, every audience member is encouraged to take a swig from the artists hip -flask of mead. That’s exactly what the audience of The Things We Do For Loveare encountered with, the owner of the mead in question – Damian ‘BB’ Wood, a professional storyteller and complete with a feather or two in his cap (or more aptly trilby).

Wood is self-assured raconteur, who holds the room in the palm of his hand, as you eagerly wait to hear the next twist in his tale. You have to admire the bravery of man, who is willing to strip back any theatrics and just stand in a blank empty space telling stories. Wood’s delivery is a melange of storytelling around a campfire meets sage and slightly cryptic gentleman who shares a story or two in a local country pub.

The first story of the evening is that of Hodja Nasreddin who set off on a voyage accompanied only by a donkey, that he rode for such a long time the donkey eventually dropped down dead. A distressed and guilt-ridden Hodja became arecluse and didn’t speak to anyone for many years, until one day he was reunited with his father. This tale reminded me of many other quest tales, such as Don Quixote, Yvain and Iseult and many Arthurian romances and fables. The exchange of stories is at the heart of some many communities, and it is refreshing to see a piece of theatre that the stripped it back to its narrative essence.

Having been captive listeners, the audience is then called upon to become the narrators of their own tale that, with a guiding hand from Wood, theyweave collectively – told to close their eyes for a period of time, and then to share the image or scene they had imagined with the group. Ever the skilled wordsmith, Wood is able to craft a tale using the suggestions of: a tree that turned into a man and then back into a tree, a little brown bear that wanted to join in with the opera, and children playing happily on a beach in Los Angles, into a tale that has real narrative thread.

Wood, in this setting, is playing to a familiar crowd of friends and those that had seen him before and occasionally did veer into the territory of anecdotes and in-jokes that were a tad difficult to grasp for outsiders. The Things We Do For Love is quite a vague umbrella title for the evening, but it is a charming, quirky and all-round playful evening, with a few drops of mead thrown in for good measure.