Storytelling festival Beyond The Border is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Over the years, it’s platformed and honed talents such as storyteller Michael Harvey, returning this year with Stéphanie Bénéteau to perform From The River To The Sea: From Wales To Québec. Hari Berrow speaks to Michael about the show and the history of the festival.
Performing in English, French and Welsh, Michael Harvey – who attended the first ever Beyond The Border festival in 1993 and has performed a number of times since – and Stéphanie Bénéteau are exploring the journeys made through their landscapes and exploring how stories change from place to place. “We’re kind of juggling the differences and the connections of different places,” Harvey tells me. “So, for example, we both have a Cinderella story, but they’re both very wonky pigeons. They start off like Cinderella stories, but they both diverge.”
“There’s something about celebrating that kind of divergence within the form,’ Harvey muses; “you hear these stories start and you think, ‘oh, I know where this is going,’ but then it just veers off. There is at least as much divergence as there is concurrence with all tales and the stories that we think we know.”
When Harvey first attended Beyond The Border he harboured no ambitions of becoming a storyteller, let alone still be doing it 30 years later. “I had no idea what I was going to. My friend Francis said, ‘oh, come along to this festival…’ I went, and I saw stuff that was OK, stuff that was a bit ropey and stuff that was absolutely amazing. I saw Abbi Patrix perform a Norwegian story called The Companion. And when I finished listening to that story I thought, ‘now I know what I need to do with the rest of my life’. I think that performance of Abbi’s was a big wake-up call to a lot of people about what storytelling could actually do.’

Harvey says that changing with the times has been part of the festival’s longevity. “It’s managed to do it because it has evolved. [BTB co-founder] David Ambrose and the others had this great idea. It started off with just a few tents and the emphasis then was much more international, simply because the visas were much easier to get. This year, Stéphanie is coming over and there will be other people who are not from here, but it’s more of a homegrown audience.
“The other big difference is the emphasis on locality, being very much rooted in Wales. The presence of the Welsh language was pretty much non-existent to begin with. That’s something that’s particularly happened since Naomi Wilds took over – this is her second festival.”
If you’re attending or thinking of attending the festival this year, Harvey has some words of advice. “Relax, work out what you want to see and see it. Don’t run from one thing to another: make sure you have enough downtime. It’s better to see a few things with your full attention than rush from one place to another. Seeing things is important, but making space to meet new and different people and to be surprised is also very, very important.”
From The River To The Sea: From Wales To Québec takes place on Beyond The Border’s Glyndŵr Stage, Sat 8 July, 4 pm.
Beyond The Border, Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire, Fri 7-Sun 9 July.
Tickets: £154. Info: beyondtheborder.com
words HARI BERROW