#65 ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably’ by White Rabbit
Sweets and a plastic skelly formed part of the table displays at White Rabbit's agreeably spine-tingling story event.
Storytelling doesn’t need to be just for kids, honest. White Rabbit are a duo who get present events in which they read short stories – their own and others’ – to an adult crowd. We were lucky enough to attend ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably’, their first event to feature a live musical accompaniment.
Since this was a night of ghost stories, it couldn’t have been more appropriate for seasonal shivers. Listening to stories isn’t quite like being at a theatre event. It’s more intimate, more hushed, and yet still ideally suited to an evening’s civilised entertainment. Like all good fireside tales, these stories mixed the eerie, the spine-tingling and the funny – this last category including a story about the recently deceased getting haunting work, and another about everyday Satanism on an allotment. (And yes, they did funny voices, too.) Other, creepier tales featured a hangman propositioned by Death to take on Jack the Ripper (appropriate for the event’s east-end setting) and an imaginary friend with a terrifying lust for existence; just the kind of thing to benefit from the restrained and expertly arranged accompaniment by the musicians. This wasn’t just background music, it was a proper score, punctuating the stories and amplifying the tone.
Oh – and Mrs Brown won a copy of A Christmas Carol by revealing that her ultimate fear is The Littlest Hobo from the old TV series (including an apology for her hobophobia). Good times.
Mr and Mrs Brown 