Hannah Collisson talks to storyteller Peter Chand about bringing Dark Tales From India to Sussex

Stories are in no way the preserve of children, says master storyteller Peter Chand.

He promises tales of love, loss, and longing, likely to make the audience think, when he performs at an event put on by Brighton Storytellers.

It is to be an evening of Dark Tales From India featuring the myths and legends not commonly heard in their original form, says Peter, who is based in the West Midlands.

Storytelling is alive and well in Sussex; the county is home to The International School of Storytelling, based at Emerson College in Forest Row, one of the UK’s leading facilities of its kind.

Established in 1994, the school has taught students from 17 countries, through a range of full-time and part-time courses.

As an art, storytelling is growing in popularity, says Peter.

“Storytelling is a buzz-word at the moment, but in reality it’s the oldest form of entertainment. More and more storytellers are taking the plunge.”

Peter’s stories are not for those waiting for the “happily ever after” ending, however.

“These are proper stories for adults,” says Peter of his Dark Tales from India. “There’s nothing there intentionally to shock people, but these are ancient stories that I am bringing back without ‘Disneyfying’ them.”

This particular set is less than a year old, but Peter has already taken it to the Netherlands, Copenhagen and London, and over the last 18 years he has travelled the world honing his craft, collecting and sharing powerful stories from Belgium to Norway, Greece and India.

He also performs for schools, festivals, libraries and community groups all over Britain, and has appeared on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Asian Network.

Originally from Wolverhampton, but with Indian parents, Peter grew up with Punjabi as his first language.

“I was into writing and poetry,” says Peter. “I was taken to a storytelling club in Shropshire, and it just blew me away.

“Nobody was getting paid, just telling stories for the love of it.”

Peter has been storytelling since 1999, but it was not until 2006 that he quit his day job, managing a store that sold Playstation and Xbox consoles.

He came to storytelling at the age of 30, and 18 years on he still finds the process exhilarating.

Some of his personal highlights include performing at a storytelling festival in Singapore (“great storytellers from real living traditions”), and at the Folktale and Storytelling Festival in Kea, Greece, where stories were told on the steps of a temple thousands of years old.

“Storytelling has enabled me to see places that I would have never seen otherwise,” says Peter, who has carved out a niche for himself, being one of only two or three Indian storytellers in Britain.

Peter collects stories from a range of sources. Some he has collected from the Punjab directly, in their original language, others were told to him by family members, or sourced from books.

Reading a story is a completely different experience from hearing one live, says Peter.

“You can’t beat the intensity of a story told to you.

“You have got to have a deep connection with the story; it has got to stir you deeply, even if that means making you laugh open-heartedly.”

Establishing a connection with the audience is key, and Peter says he does not read from notes, but instead commits the stories entirely to memory, while audience interaction is common.

“It is not pantomime, but about looking people in the eye and asking ‘what would you do?’”

Stories are also about cross-cultural communication, says Peter; UK audiences should find much in the Dark Tales of India that will resonate.

“All cultures have a Cinderella story, even if it’s a nose ring rather than a glass slipper,” says Peter.

“We all have the same needs and desires. If you look at Cinderella stories, you have the loss of a mother, children who feel they are not wanted, the idea of trying to survive. We all want to believe that there is hope, and most stories remind us that there is.”

It is not uncommon, says Peter, for his stories to spark emotional conversations after the show.

“People come up to me of all sorts of ages and say ‘I have not had a story told to me like this since I was a child’. In this day and age everything is so instant in terms of digital information, which is great, but very rarely do we sit down and listen to a story.

Peter regularly collaborates with other storytellers including Shonaleigh, a drut'syla, or storyteller in the Jewish tradition.

Together they are, Peter says, the only Indo-Jewish storytelling duo in the world.

Along with Shonaleigh, others Peter admires include Dovie Thomason, a Native American storyteller, and Christine McMahon, a storyteller from Yorkshire.

“They have their own strong identity. Whether you are from Italy or Sheffield it is about having that honesty and real voice,” says Peter.

  •  Brighton Storytellers present Peter Chand and Dark Tales from India, Mon 30 March 7.45pm £8/£7conc Komedia Studio, Brighton.
  • Tickets available from www.komedia.co.uk/brighton or 0845 293 8480
  • For more information about Brighton Storytellers see www.storytellingbrighton.com