Gilgamesh – The Crick Crack Club / British Museum, London

A lovely storytelling event by the Crick Crack Club held at the British Museum, in which we hear the millennia-old story of Gilgamesh.

The Crick Crack Club

I’ve been wanting to see something by the Crick Crack Club for some time. To be fair the only thing holding me back from this is a packed calendar, as they hold frequent events in London and beyond. But what is the Crick Crack Club? Well, they describe themselves as “the UK’s busiest and boldest performance storytelling programmer and promoter”. So, storytelling events. They span different times and cultures, from European, Caribbean or African fables to Greek myths to, as in this case, an ancient Sumerian epic. You can see their listings here.

I really like storytelling. I find it connects me to a deep, shared humanity. On how many evenings have humans around the world sat together to hear tales of love, loss, pride, bravery…? There is something that has polished the best stories in the telling and retelling, preserving them as they were handed down across the generations. Enabling a very few to survive until a writing system allowed a different way to preserve them.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one such tale. The oldest written versions date back to the 18th Century BCE. There are various tablets which record parts of the story, either as stand-alone poems or as an epic. On a Sunday afternoon at the British Museum (ok, not an evening at the fireside, but what can you do?) Crick Crack Club Artistic Director Ben Haggarty related Gilgamesh’s story to us, with music by Jonah Brody.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Just who is this Gilgamesh, then, and what’s it all about? Well this is a proper epic, and so is a tale of gods and men, heroes and battles to the death. Gilgamesh is a demi-god, who initially oppresses his people. He’s so busy indulging his own desires that he hardly things of them. Until a match is created in the form of wild man Enkidu. Once Enkidu is tamed the two find a kindred spirit in each other, and set off on various adventures. Across the two hours (with interval) of the event, we see personal growth, a reckoning with mortality, and even a recognisable story which crossed ancient cultures.

The Crick Crack Club style is vivid and animated. Heggarty fills the stage, accompanying his words with sounds and actions where relevant. And Brody has a selection of instruments at his disposal, all sufficiently traditional not to pull us from the spell cast over us. The session I saw admittedly ran a bit long (and was thus interrupted by a closing announcement over the museum’s tannoy) but otherwise I enjoyed it very much.

Who is this sort of event best for? I think you have to have a historic (or theatrical) interest, and preferably an appreciation of traditional pastimes brought into the contemporary era. I feel like that isn’t quite as narrow a tranche of society as it seems. Because after all, there’s something in most of us which responds to this shared experience, just as our ancestors did across the centuries.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

For future Crick Crack Club events, check here