Chaos Thaoghaire events feature a lineup of live storytellers, usually between three and seven (we sometimes allow for exceptions), and a set of brain-boiling games, all based around a theme. The structure is simple: each storyteller speaks for five to ten minutes, give or take. And between each round of storytelling is a round of games. At the end of the night, everyone claps and says how good it was.

Will you get into our van and help us find our lost puppy?

The theme is in the form of a statement. For example, “Family is a form of psychological torture,” or we might pick something more literary: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” You’ll see when you come that we’re not all that faithful to the theme. We drag it along behind us or chase it on the horizon, but we’re really just looking at the scenery.

Who are these people?

Each Chaos Thaoghaire event is shaped in part by a curator who chooses the storytellers. A lot of our curators are already engaged in the arts, media, music, or otherwise have a public reputation of their own, and while they choose whomever they like, we especially encourage them to invite people who might not have an existing outlet for their storytelling talent.

What sort of stories are we talking about?

Personal ones, we mean. It’s not for your latest work of short fiction, it’s for first-person accounts of what happened in our little corners of history. While we want to stress the non-fiction element of the storytelling, we encourage embellishment, truth-stretching, and shoehorning of playful narrative forms onto our generally non-linear world.

This isn’t a stand-up comedy event. This isn’t a confessional. This isn’t AA. But most of the stories will have some humour, and a lot of them – we hope – will be a little bit moving and maybe a little upsetting because, hey, that’s how the world works. Tragedy is funny and humour is a little sad clown, trying to peel itself off the velvet painting that is your broken heart. Aw. Poor pet. Now get up there and use your pain to amuse us!

You can hear some of our past stories in the ’stories’ section of this site.

I’m a brilliant storyteller and I want to tell a story. What should I do?

Oh goody! Well, the first thing you should do is send us an email at chaosdublin@gmail.com. We can’t promise anything, but sometimes our curators want us to help find good storytellers for their lineup. We want to find as many ways as possible to help good stories be told and heard.

So am I going to be put on the spot?

Of course not. All of our storytellers are chosen in advance by our curator and/or by us. Stop freaking out.

The only time you might be compelled to perform in front of the Chaos Thaoghaire crowd is if you are caught cheating and your penance demands it, but it will rarely mean telling a story. Ok, now you can totally freak.

What if I mess up?

You’re bound to mess up. But remember, if you’re one of our storytellers, you’re speaking to an audience about to be humbled by bold-faced cheating, impossible questions, and probably being called every curse word from ‘doofus’ to ‘c*cks*cker’ by their own loved ones. You’re in a room full of people who are here who are about to be so messed up it’s not even (not) funny.

The key is to tell the stories live, and not using an autocue or a pile of notes or someone doing a kind of mnemonic semaphore across the room. You don’t need to memorise verbatim, just plan them. And besides, you don’t want to sound too rehearsed.

Oh, and you’re welcome to use images. And no, they don’t have to be family-friendly. We certainly aren’t. Your family doesn’t even like us!