Buckfast Abbey to host storytelling festival

In celebration of 30 years of providing inspirational, hands-on learning experiences to schools across the region, Buckfast Abbey’s Education Department will play host to a major Christian Storytelling Festival from 2nd to 4th July. Set in idyllic gardens with the magnificent backdrop of Buckfast Abbey, a working Benedictine monastery just off the A38 and within easy reach of Exeter and Plymouth and surrounding areas, the three-day extravaganza of storytelling, theatre and puppetry will include school visits on the first two days and culminate in a fabulous Family Day on Saturday 4th July. With tickets selling fast, advanced booking is recommended to ensure families don’t miss out on this unique event.

Buckfast Abbey Storytelling Festival will feature a host of storytelling talent, both from across the South West as well as further afield. Local highlights will be performances by the Bovey-based award-winning author, editor, actor and voiceover artist, Alexa Tewkesbury, who will be treating visitors to excerpts from a selection of her books. She will also be leading an interactive seminar for adults demonstrating how, as a story teller, you can be your own one-person theatre company putting on a show.

Alexa comments: “I am really excited to be performing at Buckfast Abbey’s Storytelling Festival. For 3 to 6-year-olds, I will be performing stories from my Pens series, possibly a Christmas story (which seems odd for July but it's a great one for children to join in with) and I was also thinking of a couple of fairytales with a good, positive moral at the end.

“For 7 to 11-year-olds I will perform excerpts from my Topz Secret Diaries series, Topz Secret Stories series, Topz Gospels (possibly just pre-publication in July) and some short stories as well, again pre-publication. There will be stories to listen to, and some to join in with, so it will be a fun-packed Festival.”

Also appearing at the Buckfast Abbey Storytelling Festival will be Laura Hetherington a storyteller, theatre practitioner and Heritage and Arts Learning Consultant with over 20 years’ experience of education, interpretation and learning at grass roots and strategic levels.

Laura says: “I look forward to taking the school groups on sensory story walks through the stunning grounds of Buckfast Abbey, and on the Saturday Family Day I be getting families with younger children to take part in some participatory family movement, rhyme and story workshops.”

One half of Jakalory, which offers a wide range of creative learning and communications services to organisations specialising in heritage, countryside, gardens and the art, Laura comes with a wide-ranging experience prior to developing consultancy work, including within her role as Head of Learning for the National Trust. She also has many years teaching and lecturing experience as well as expertise in directing and devising theatre, facilitating workshops through drama and storytelling and developing live interpretation.

Alison Gagg, Education Department Manager says: “As well as Alexa and Laura, we have an exciting line up of storytellers, from Abimbola Gbemi Alao, a Nigeria-born bi-lingual storyteller, author, translator of several books, and life coach, to the Torquay-based Unleashed Theatre Company, which will also be performing our open air theatre performance at Buckfast Abbey, Into the Light, from 7th to 12th September.

“We really wanted to make this a fitting celebration of Buckfast Abbey Education Department, which continues to attract school groups back time and time again. We even have teachers who first visited the Centre as school children themselves and remember their visit well.”

Family tickets cost £40 for Saturday 4th July. Places are filling fast, so anyone wishing to book a place at this exciting event should contact the Buckfast Abbey Book Shop on 01364 645506 or by emailing agagg@buckfast.org.uk.

For more information, please visit Buckfast Abbey website.