Mabinogi Monday #7 with Paula Crutchlow

Storytelling with Michael Harvey

Paula with sticks and plastic

Paula Crutchlow has played a pivotal role in my development as a storyteller over the last ten or so years. We first met her as the dramaturg on the show Hunting the Giant’s Daugher and then asked her back for the show Dreaming the Night Field. Our conversation took place in the garden of the Felin Uchaf Centre on the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales. Felin Uchaf in an important place for the Dreaming the Night Field team because it was one of the places where the spade work was done for the show. It was from there that we went on site visits; worked on our improvisation and blending our artforms of story, song and music; ate, drank and discussed together and even forged a spear and threw it through a rock!

In this discussion we ranged far and wide and talked about…

Paula working on Dreaming the Night Field in Aberystwyth Arts Centre

Paula in the devising period of Dreaming the Night Field

• How the two shows Hunting the Giant’s Daughter and Dreaming the Night Field are different in approach and style
• The nature of magic in Dreaming the Night Field
• The relationship between teller, audience, place and space
• Paula’s ways of working on the material and with performers
• The importance of making a real spear and using it with intention
• How human made things are wedged into the wo