Magic Island Storytelling Theatre: Strange Tales From The Isle Of Arran: Ghost & fairy tales & more.

Marty Ross

"It must be admitted that the particular class of stories which turns on the marvellous possesses a stronger influence when told than when committed to print" - Walter Scott, The Tapestried Chamber. Storyteller & audio dramatist Marty Ross (Audible, BBC, Wireless Theatre, Big Finish, Kisses In The Dark) performs magical, mysterious and creepy tales as a spinoff from Ross's regular storytelling shows for ArranSound radio on the Scottish Isle of Arran, where Ross lives. Ross' work has been performed by the likes of Brian Cox, Daniel Kaluuya & Stephen Fry - here Ross performs "unplugged".

  1. 2d ago

    THE PASSION OF TAM SHANTER Act Two

    Here's the second part of this recording of the live show which I performed a couple of weeks ago here on Arran,a show which reinvents the classic ballad of Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns as a very contemporary psychological thriller. Property developer Tam has just taken ownership of an old ruined church with a sinister history, intending to demolish it to make way for a huge out-of-town 'retail development'. But before that can happen, Tam first has to settle accounts with the mysterious young woman who almost killed him the night before....

    27 min

  2. Jun 9

    THE PASSION OF TAM SHANTER Act One

    Just a week or so ago, I performed my show THE PASSION OF TAM SHANTER here at Whiting Bay on the Isle of Arran. Like most of my live shows, this was not scripted - though it was rehearsed so intensively that I always had a clear idea of where I was going next with the words and narrative: in that sense it wasn't purely improvisational, unlike several of the folk tale performances I do here on the podcast, eg Wild Katy & The Living Dead or The Murderer's Hand etc. etc. The only catch with such an intricate, but also text-free, show is that if I decide months later that I want to do another live performance, I have a job in hand reminding myself of all the intricacies of a story every bit as complex as one of my scripted audio dramas for Audible or the BBC: there's no script to consult! So I thought I'd perform the whole thing one more time for the microphone, to serve as a kind of aide memoire for rehearsals of the next theatrical performance, whenever that should happen. And then, of course, having done all this, I thought that recording a decent enough bit of storytelling to go here on the podcast for those who might never get the chance to see me performing live. So here it is, in the five 'acts' that befit a tragic drama. The story, obviously, is my very modern version of the classic ballad of Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns. But whereas the original is distinctly, tongue in cheek, Burns as a man of the 18th century enlightenment making fun of supersitions surrounding wirchcraft, even as he derives narrative excitement from them, my version is a much more serious contemporary psychological horror story, more in keeping with the folk tale versions of this material which preceded that of Burns. Likewise, while Burns's protagonist is very much the cliche of Scotsman as drunken Jack-the-Lad, I - like many modern Scots - am a little weary of that stereotype, so my Tam is drunk on power and ambition rather than whisky. At the same time, his cavalier attitude to the women in his life may at times echo the behaviour of Burns himself. But I want the story to be taken on its own terms, as a powerful modern thriller. Here's the start of it....

    30 min

  3. May 23

    THE WITCH, THE WOLVES & THE WILD, WILD WOOD Part 4 (finale)

    Final part of this very Scottish version of a Slavic folktale. Our heroine Ellie has contended with Grampa Guzzler, wild wolves, midges, dead men's clothes, a counter-clockwise haggis and now, with the help of her friend Ian Skelly, the skull upon a pole, seems set for a happy ending. But hold on, there's a whole stretch of wild wood yet to get through... and all the dangers there present!

    44 min

  4. May 16

    THE WITCH, THE WOLVES & THE WILD, WILD WOOD Part 3

    Well, those who've been listening to the first two parts of this story might be wondering... "Ok, we've had the wolves and the woods, but what about the witch, Marty?" Well, here she is now - let me introduce you to a very distinctively Arran sort of a witch, Nanny Rooney, along with her gruff consort, the infamous Hairy Canary. The adventures of our heroine Ellie are about to get even more extraordinary and dangerous - though help might be coming from an unusual source.....

    31 min

  5. May 9

    THE WITCH, THE WOLVES & THE WILD, WILD WOOD Part 2

    Here's the second part of this tale, in which I relocate a Slavic "skazka" right here to the Isle of Arran, a tale I performed last year in the lovely Easmor woodland here on Arran, which conveniently has a mysterious cottage in the wood which, in real life, we reached at just the point in the story when heroine Ellie reaches the cottage at the end of this episode.... Anyway, here's this episode in which we are introduced to a very peculiar pack of wolves!

    30 min

  6. May 2

    THE WITCH, THE WOLVES & THE WILD, WILD WOOD Part 1

    Here's the start of a four part story, actually inspired by Slavic folk tale, but relocated by me to the Isle of Arran (where I performed it last year in the beautiful woodland setting of Easmor, here on the island) and made very Scottish in my inimitable fashion - a classic fairy tale of a poorly treated step-daughter launched into a series of fantastical adventures which might, just possibly (fingers crossed) lead to a happy ending by at least the end of part 4. But there are plenty of other dangers to be got past in the meantime, starting with a strange presence our heroine Ellie encounters in a dusty attic....

    26 min

  7. Mar 25

    THE GHOSTLY BRIDAL

    Was on the mainland (or "the big island" as we say here on Arran) last week and picked up yet another book of Scottish folk tales. This one featured a really creepy tale from Shetland - and, as my sister happens to be there this week, I thought I'd do my own distinct, improvised take on it. Huddle close and shiver, folks....

    1h 2m

  8. Feb 20

    THE MERMAID'S VENGEANCE

    Here's a little blast from the past. A while back, I posted my version of a traditional folktale which I gave the title A Kiss Of Salt. This was well received - and one of my own favourite pieces - but more recently, my hosts for this podcast did some kind of AI sweep looking for plagiarism among material posted. It turned out that someone had written some song which had nothing to do with my story but which made some reference in its title to a kiss being salty. This also happened with another of my stories Wild Hearts, Warm Hearts - again there was no link between my extended folklore-based story and a reference to hearts in someone's three minute love song but AI, as we all know, is anything but intelligent. As a result both pieces were peremptorily removed from the podcast. I was sent an appeal form but only one form, though two stories had been taken down - and apparently the AI could only process one submission per form. Wild Hearts, Warm Hearts was quickly found "Not Guilty" and restored but not A Kiss Of Salt. Because it was not plagiarised - my source was a public domain folk tale which, in the interest of full disclosure, can be found in Volume 1 of Robert Hunt's 19th century collection Popular Romances Of The West of England or The Drolls, Traditions & Superstitions of Old Cornwall (I was working in Cornwall when I first encountered the story, Hunt's book being the Cornish equivalent of the Brothers Grimm) - I here confidently repost it - but, to save confusion, post it not under my preferred title but under the title Hunt's collection gave it: The Mermaid's Vengeance. That maybe gives more of the game away than i'd like, but I'm proud of the story and performance and my very Arran reinvention of it - so here it is, back again. Enjoy!

    43 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

"It must be admitted that the particular class of stories which turns on the marvellous possesses a stronger influence when told than when committed to print" - Walter Scott, The Tapestried Chamber. Storyteller & audio dramatist Marty Ross (Audible, BBC, Wireless Theatre, Big Finish, Kisses In The Dark) performs magical, mysterious and creepy tales as a spinoff from Ross's regular storytelling shows for ArranSound radio on the Scottish Isle of Arran, where Ross lives. Ross' work has been performed by the likes of Brian Cox, Daniel Kaluuya & Stephen Fry - here Ross performs "unplugged".

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