The floor is strewn with bean bags and duvets, and groups of people are sat about laughing, dipping homemade cookies into their tea as they chat amongst themselves. Not the typical Dublin night out that many of us have come to expect, but there’s clearly demand for this type of activity given the success of this event. At the collective arts centre Exchange Dublin, an assortment of people of varying ages and backgrounds have all come together for the launch of ‘Milk and Cookies’ – a free storytelling night aiming to revive Ireland’s lost oral tradition. The night is now set to become a regular occurrence, with plans to make it a monthly fixture on Exchange Dublin’s calendar.
Over the course of the evening, around ten storytellers took to the mic and treated the cosily seated crowd to a tale – some of which were the readers’ own creations, some were true stories, and others were retellings of sagas the speaker had read or been told themselves. Given the event’s proximity to Halloween, many of the tales took a spooky turn, though often in a comedic vein: indeed many of those who spun their yarns were also stand-up comedians, so the audience kept engaged and entertained. In one case, two randomly selected audience members were even made the subject of an improvised mock girl-meets-boy story. Over the evening, the quality of the performances were kept high, especially given the event’s open mic policy – it can often be hard for organisers to control standards whilst keeping the event democratic, but ‘Milk and Cookies’ seem to have hit the nail on the head.
Although this was the first ‘Milk and Cookies’ event, it has not been the first successful spoken word night held at Exchange Dublin in the past couple of weeks: on the 9th October, ‘Exchange Words’ (who work in collaboration with the ‘Milk and Cookies’ team) also kicked off a new series of monthly spoken word events. Unlike ‘Milk and Cookies’, they feature pre-booked artists and have a wider scope of acts, featuring stand up, book readings, performance poetry, sketch comedy, live ‘radio theatre’ and any other performances that are based on the spoken word. Their first event was also a great success, and ‘Exchange Words’ will return for a second session on Friday 13th November.
Formed in response to the growing popularity of one-off shows with a similar agenda, the people behind ‘Exchange Words’ and ‘Milk and Cookies’ felt it was due time that a dedicated spoken word scene, with regular events, was formed in Dublin. “Storytelling is such a big part of our Irish heritage”, said Francis, 22, an enthusiastic audience member at ‘Milk and Cookies’. “It would be such a shame to let a tradition like that slip away – it’s good to see that spoken word is coming back and that so many people are getting involved with stuff like this.”
However, one traditional aspect of Irish storytelling heritage wasn’t present: though one storyteller made it the subject of his tale, none of the black stuff (or any other alcoholic beverages for that matter) was being served on the premises. Like all the events at Exchange Dublin, there was a strict alcohol-free policy, in an effort to keep the event open to all ages. At first I was sceptical about this: I’ve always been a firm believer that the best way to tell a tale is over a good old fashioned pint; however the crowd wasn’t short of laughter and the speakers were just fine without the usual helping of ‘Dutch courage’ – in fact, perhaps this explains how standards stayed so high over the evening! A group of high school students in the audience were avid supporters of the policy: Aoife, 15, said “It’s really good, because most of the time stuff like this is on in pubs. It’s okay for older people but it means the younger generation misses out…when really they should be encouraging young people to come along to things like this.”
But the alcohol-ban isn’t the only ethical policy in place at Exchange Dublin: the centre is also entirely non-profit and everyone working on the events hosted here is working for free. So each of the groups using this space as their ‘creative hub’ (which range from guerrilla gardening groups to short film collectives) have been set up purely out of passion for the subject. And it shows: the organisers of ‘Milk and Cookies’, Sarah Quigley and Sean O Heigeartaigh, seem to enjoy the evening as much as the rest of the crowd and clearly have a strong interest in their work, making the whole thing feel more genuine. Volunteers need no previous experience of event organisation, and can dedicate as much or as little of their time to the project as they want, meaning many of those involved are students at Trinity – including O Heigeartaigh.
Overall, the evening was a great success for ‘Milk and Cookies’ – the event was scheduled to finish at 9:30PM but went on for an extra 45 minutes due to the crowd’s enthusiasm. At the end of the night, there was a feeling that everyone present had played a small part in its triumph: from the audience members who donated home-baked cookies; the volunteers who have worked so hard to make the night happen; and finally, those who just came along, listened and soaked up the atmosphere. In today’s world it’s hard to find a good night out that won’t leave you with a sore head and an empty wallet, so Exchange Dublin is certainly providing a service in demand – entertainment, culture and minimal (or even non-existent) entry fees has been a winning combination so far for these events.
