Our annual storytelling competition is back! Local tellers compete for the honour of holding the Bardic Chair for a year, with the winner chosen by the Fates. Last year a new system led the Fates to choose Drift Snowbarger, who will they choose this year?

Once a year Mr Rook's steps away from its usual format of presenting visiting professional tellers and collaborates with Openstorytellers to bring you the Bardic Chair - an open competition where anyone can tell any traditional or original story. This leads to a fantastic mix of stories, with highly-experienced professionals telling alongside beginners giving their first public performance to a supportive audience.

MC for the evening will once again be Taffy Thomas, first ever Storytelling Laureate and patron of Openstorytellers. Come along to tell a story or just listen to an evening of fabulous tales.

If you would like to book a spot to tell please contact Mr Rook's through their Facebook page and bring a traditional or original story, song or poem that can be told, sung or recited from memory in under seven minutes. Winners receive a certificate and keep the bardic chair – yes it is a real chair - for a year.

Come to listen: Come to tell
All are welcome

Age 12 +
Doors 7pm for 7.30 start
Tickets available online or on the door £9 or £7 concessions

Tellers get in free but must book in advance

Mr Rook's Speak Easy is a performance storytelling club based at Rook Lane Chapel in the heart of Frome, Somerset.

Openstorytellers is a charity that works to enrich and empower the lives of people who are marginalised because of learning and communication difficulties, and is co-run by people with a learning disability. We do this through varied work around the telling and sharing of stories, using a collaborative approach based on fifteen years of specialist research and pioneering practice.

Picture: EastWest Photographers