about
Performer. Researcher. Advocate
The son of a doctor and a playwright fostered into the Glaswegian slums, grandson to a bookseller and great grandson of a scrap metal dealer – Ben grew up with a love of story and a passion for the rich untamed metaphorical content of fairytale, epic, and global mythologies.
Ben studied mime with Ladislav Fialka, trained as an Image Maker with Welfare State International, and as a Director at East 15. In 1981, at the age of 22 he founded the West London Storytelling Unit based in a Youth Centre in Acton. 4 years later he directed Britain’s first Storytelling festival at Battersea Arts Centre and then he founded the Crick Crack Club becoming the driving force behind the revisioning of storytelling as a contemporary performing art in the UK.
Ben performs on stages that range from caves to the Carnegie hall, with performances that last 2 minutes to 2 hours. A fairytale-teller extraordinaire, his repertoire spans Indo-European fairytale for Grown-ups, Greek and Irish mythology, the epic of Gilgamesh, and contemporary myths of Frankenstein and Mr Sandmann, which won him a fringe first award for best spoken word. He is co-founder of the wildly experimental myth-telling ensemble Pandvani108.
Ben works with museums and galleries, undertakes residencies, and teaches, mentors and directs performers. Ben is a researcher and narrative consultant – from studying epic singing traditions in central India, Rajasthan, and central Asia; providing stories for Jim Henson and Anthony Minghella’s Storyteller series in the 80s; to creating narratives for Hull’s Urban Legends, Northern Lights event in 2018.
From 2001 to 2011 he was the official storyteller with Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road ensemble researching, devising and performing stories in large-scale concerts in America and Europe.
Ben has written graphic novels and comic strips for the DFC, the Phoenix, and his graphic novel series, ‘MeZolith’, is published by Archaia-BOOM. In 2017 he was awarded a British Citizenship Award for the Arts, for his services to the artform.
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