An evening of oral storytelling, a Story Slam, to crown the 2026-7 Storytelling Bard of Gloucester at The Folk of Gloucester.
The Folk of Gloucester hosts a Story Slam on Saturday 21 November, the main event of a full day of storytelling run by the Gloucester Storytelling Café. The evening is the competition for the Bardic Chair of Gloucester, which goes to the local yarn-spinner who wins the slam. The winner holds the chair for the following year, and this is only the second time the slam has been staged.
The slam is the culmination of a day that starts at 10:30am, with the storytelling running right through to the evening. Along the way, the Café puts on two free workshops: one for children aged 7 to 14 and another for adults. If you're not competing in the slam yourself, you can spend the day getting into the storytelling side of things before the competition kicks off.
The setting has its own history to lean on. The Folk of Gloucester is a Tudor timber-framed building in the Cathedral Quarter, once the city's Folk Museum and now a community hub run by volunteers, with a café serving home-cooked lunches and a Secret Garden. It's a good spot to hang around in between the day's sessions. Nearby you'll find St Mary de Lode, the city's oldest parish church, and St Nicholas, a 12th-century landmark with a leaning 15th-century tower.
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The slam starts at 7pm on the 21st, with the full day of storytelling running from 10:30am. Entry for the evening is ÂŁ5 on the door.
