For who could ever be sufficient a herald, unless he have lungs like those of the mighty Stentor himself!
– Aristotle, Politics, Chap. VII. 1326b
We’re very excited to announce that the Ancient Rome Refocused podcast episode all about Helicon Storytelling and our debut show, The Battle of Frogs and Mice, is now live! It’s entitled ‘Don’t Sacrifice the Storyteller‘.
It’s been a joy to work with Rob Cain who has done a wonderful job of explaining Helicon Storytelling’s origins and how we created The Battle of Frogs and Mice. Storytellers Louise Farnall and Howard Horner, alongside our resident composer David Denyer and our co-founders Hayley Russell and Andrew Hulse are all featured.
Ancient Rome Refocused has been running for over ten years and we are featured in Season 5, Episode 26. Whilst the title implies his love for all things Roman, Rob’s podcasts are wide-ranging and feature interviews with academics, creatives and novelists also covering Ancient Greece and Egypt. Rob tells us that he’s interested in anyone who has been inspired by the Ancient World (and if you think you have something interesting and Classical to talk about then contact Rob!).
We’ve pulled out some short clips of our favourite moments from the podcast below in case you’ve only got five minutes. (If the clips show up as ‘error’, try on Google Chrome).
Here’s Andrew and Hayley talking about how Helicon Storytelling came to be:
Hayley talks about why we are a storytelling company rather than a theatre company:
Howard discusses the secret of our Ancient Greek inspired format:
Louise tells us about one of her favourite improvised moments from the show:
David explains a bit more about the wonderful music in The Battle of Frogs and Mice:
Andrew explains just how much the kids loved our puppets:
Please do check out the full 50-minute podcast here (Apple Podcasts and Hipcast), and more of Rob’s podcasts via Ancient Rome Refocused. We’ve also got some bonus material featuring Hayley and Andrew talking about Kleos and the famous scholar of Ancient Greece, Milman Parry.
We hope you enjoy the podcast!