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Graham is a member of Equity
and has public liability insurance cover.
CRB check available
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Graham Rogers
was born in the East End of London at the end of WWII. He grew up
playing on bomb sites during the day and at bed time he remembers making
up the ends of stories after his father fell asleep telling the
beginnings. Following a wide variety of short lived careers he became a
teacher and taught in First Schools for ten years, where he specialised
in drama, music and, later, the expressive arts. For another ten years
he was a County Museum Advisory Teacher and it was during this time that
he honed his storytelling skills, bringing history alive for children
visiting museums. His work was very varied; historic sites, both indoors
and outdoors and in museums and schools. During this time he gained a
wide experience of storytelling, drama, theatre in education, INSET
courses and working with museum artefacts. Much of his work still has an
historic basis, although there are links to a wide spectrum of the
curriculum.
His stories
vary; some including a large element of children's drama and others
tending more towards solo performances. All his projects, though, have a
high degree of audience participation. Stories are partly told and
partly acted by Graham as he employs his wide range of teaching and
acting skills. His experience with primary school children means that he
can bring an audience through a range of emotions from fits of laughter
to nail biting silence or from marching or dancing to avid attention
with ease.
Performances are improvised around a prepared story and therefore no two
are quite the same, the level of language changing to match the
children's age.
Each of Graham's stories are small theatrical performances using a wide
collection of props, musical instruments and puppets to accompany them.
His main instrument is the Spanish guitar but he also plays the lute,
anglo concertina, recorders, tin whistle and drum.
Graham believes that many children in
his audiences need to be lured into the excitement of the spoken word
through visual stimuli. He therefore tries to ensure that all are
enthusiastic and excited by the forthcoming event, even before a word
has been spoken.
Group Sizes
Some of his projects, such his Pirate Story, are suitable for
larger groups of a 100 or so. .
With Reception and Key Stage One children Graham prefers to work with
groups of single class size. In this way the young children's natural
enthusiasm to question and join in performances can be carefully
incorporated and encouraged.
Each story
on this site has its own page with a guide to the audience size.
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