Fairytales for Grownups: Telling the Blues

Performance Storytelling and Song by Jan Blake and Matt Chandler

From juke joints and brothels, to slave shacks and plantations - under the starlit sky of the deep Southern States emancipated slaves of the African Diaspora, dressed in indigo dyed denim and banned from singing their homeland songs, spirituals and field hollers, created, sang and lived the blues! Fusing song, folktale and legend, the remarkable storyteller, Jan Blake, and blues guitarist, Matt Chandler, tell the blues. Join them for a night in the very fine company of those who've got the blues, those who defy the blues, those who cure them, and those who cause them. This is a performance to raise the roof and bring the stars down to the windows to listen.

Jan Blake
Powerful and bold, Jan Blake is the Queen of Afro-Caribbean Storytelling. An outstanding storyteller, she performs in theatres and festivals the length and breadth of Europe. Jan was born in Manchester to Jamaican parents. Inspired by recordings of ‘Miss Lou’ (Louise Bennett) she came to telling stories in 1986, and rapidly gained an international reputation for witty and exhilarating performances. Specialising in folktales from West Africa, North Africa, the Arab world and the Caribbean, her repertoire is full of tales of powerful women and her versions of Ananse’s exploits are definitive.

Matt Chandler
Matt has worked with a diverse range of artists including Youth (Killing Joke, The Orb), Arno Carstens, Fake?, Poly Styrene and more recently accompanied Ozark Henry on his European tour. 
His innovative style is supported by a career that has spanned genres from jazz to punk, folk to electronica. Based in London, Matt's current projects include jazz group The Matt Chandler Trio with Jason Simpson on double bass and Sophie Alloway on drums, and electro-funk band Pest who regularly play live shows around London and have releases on Ninja Tune records. In 2009 Matt independently released his debut album “After Midnight” and followed this up in 2011 with his second, It Goes Like This.