The Narrative Arts Club was founded in 2005 to bring innovative storytelling into the spotlight as a popular form of entertainment in the mainstream of Dublin's buzzing nightlife. 

In this context, "storytelling" is understood as an art form both ancient and brand new, in which the performer presents a dramatic sequence of events by simply telling the story, using eye contact and improvised words and gestures to interact with the audience. In this simple form of "eye-contact theatre", the storytelling performer speaks directly to the audience, without elaborate sets, lighting or costumes. The friendly contact between teller and listeners creates a magical space where the story unfolds vividly in the imagination.

The Narrative Arts Club is intended to develop the art of storytelling in Dublin and other parts of Ireland as a form of entertainment that competes for audiences who might otherwise go to the cinema. Although storytelling has its own ways of working its magic, we believe that the same dedication to plot development and production values can be applied to recapture some of the ground that storytelling has lost to the movies.

We see a pressing need for Irish and international storytellers to develop our skills in evoking a wide range of emotional responses from our audiences. We are not stand-up comedians. Some good tales evoke laughter, but others may evoke fear and compassion, just as a tragedy in conventional theatre might. Others may evoke a sense of suspense or wonder, and these may be every bit as entertaining, and often twice as engaging as our comedic tales.

Current regular performers are Adam Wilson and club director Coilín "The" Oh-Aissieux. All acts for any given show are usually arranged in advance. We welcome skilled and dedicated tellers to perform with us, in line with our vision for the development of Irish storytelling. See Perform! for further information.

If you have not yet been to one of our shows, please see the Events page. And if you have, please leave a message on our Message Wall