The Four Tellers ready with more great Island tales
The storytellers played to sold out crowds last summer and are back again starting Monday
The Four Tellers are back on stage in Georgetown this summer, preparing once again to set people rolling in the aisles with laughter.
The storytellers gather around a kitchen table set up on stage telling tales — some of them quite tall.
If we can make the three guys at the table laugh, we have one heck of a story.- Dennis King
"We have no shortage of stories," said Evans, who specializes in political impersonations. He brought the house down last year with his impersonation of long-serving Island MP Lawrence MacAulay.
"I gotta tell ya, I didn't start impersonating Lawrence MacAulay last summer. It's been going on for a while. I would say 39 years," he said.
All of the troupe was involved in the Festival of Small Halls when they decided it would be fun to do a show that had more stories than music.
"We decided to try it. A show that's 90 per cent stories and 10 per cent music ... and we shook hands on our inaugural meeting and we said, 'Whatever money we lose we'll share 25 per cent," laughs Evans.
For Dennis King, authenticity is the key to their success.
"It's really the ultimate Island authentic experience because it's something that everyone can relate to. When you go back through the annals of history everybody was in a dynamic where people sat around the kitchen table and told stories," said King.
A great evening at the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown this week with <a href="https://twitter.com/DennyKing7">@DennyKing7</a> and the Four Tellers crew. <a href="http://t.co/sKkRgqsfKX">pic.twitter.com/sKkRgqsfKX</a>
—@L_MacAulay"I think the key that we have amongst us is that we just really know how to feed off each other ... If we can make the three guys at the table laugh, we have one heck of a story," he said.
The stories are about the storytellers' lives, going back to the days of lanterns and no running water, right up to the 70s and 80s. They talk about their families, politics, even religion. And while much of the evening revolves around humour, there are those stories that bring a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye.
And as magical as it is for the audience, it is doubly so for the men on the stage.
"We were standing in the wings," said Evans. "I felt exactly like I did in Grade 7 for the Christmas concert before we went out on stage ... extremely excited and it was kind of half-magical."