The 14th Tale

Inua Ellams is one of the best storytellers I know.

Last night, I sat among 50 people at the Almeida Theatre in Islington to see him take us through his life, for the final night of Theatre Brothel. From the time he made friends with the new Chinese boy at school because he noticed they both enjoyed the same spine-tingle after weeing up a wall, to the day he found out his dad was numb down one side of his body because of a stroke, our storyteller took us on a journey. From Nigeria to London. From being a boy to becoming a man.

He'd chosen every word carefully. And every pause. And every heavy breath, every rhyme, every look, every gesture, every thing. To encourage us to think, and understand who Inua Ellams is today.

He was aware of his audience. He didn't know us, but he knew enough about us to know when we needed a pause, when we needed another line, or when we needed the next slice of his life.

And that's why I enjoyed it so much. Because I felt like he was talking to me. Like we'd just popped to the pub and he wanted to share some personal stories. Like I was the only friend he trusted with this information. I bet everyone else in the audience had the same feeling.

'I'm from a long line of troublemakers,' the 14th Tale starts.

And a long line of storytellers, too, I'd guess.