A Red Indian in full war-dress armed with bottles of prairie medicine, an exploding bucket, Japanese demons, and a voice from plague-ridden London in 1665, all feature in a live story-telling event to be held at Wellcome Collection on 18-19 July.

Four especially commissioned story-tellers will use performances, Japanese story boards and live demonstrations to tell their stories, each inspired by one of four different objects in the Wellcome Library.

Story-lovers of all ages will be transported to London during the Great Plague of 1665-1666, to the magical land of Japanese spirits and demons, to Clapham Common in the 1890s – where assistants dressed as Red Indians touted Sequah medicines whilst volunteers had their teeth pulled – and taken on a school trip to San Diego in the mid 1990s to hear Francis Crick’s colourful personal account of his early youthful, and at times explosive, experiments.

These four stories, spanning different countries and centuries, bring to life four fascinating items in the Wellcome Library – the world’s greatest collections of books, manuscripts, pictures and films relating to the history medicine.

Families and adults are welcome at this free event, which also includes audio-description of the four central objects for the visually-impaired, as well as speech-to-text live subtitles (on Saturday 18 July) and BSL (on Sunday 19 July) for the hearing-impaired.

Storytellers and their inspiration

Marvellous Medicine Show
Lonny Evans
Inspired by oil painting ‘Sequah on Clapham Common’.

Lonny will use her skills at audio-description to bring to life this lively scene of the Sequah ‘American medicine show’ on Clapham Common in the 1890s, when there was a great public interest in Native American culture.

Rokuro-Kubi
Sarah Rundle
Inspired by a coloured woodcut of Japanese masks.

Using a Japanese storytelling technique called Kamishibai, and inspired by this Japanese woodcut, Sarah will perform the story of ‘Rokuro-Kubi’, taken from ‘Kwaidan’ by Lafcadio Hearn.

A grand day out
Cassandra Wye
Inspired by thank you letters from school children, sent to Francis Crick after a visit to the Salk Institute.

Cassandra will tell the story of a school trip to visit Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, and the stories he told children to inspire them about science.

The letter in the mud
Catherine Swingler / Kate Stonham
Inspired by John Moore’s letter, sent from plague-ridden London in 1665.

Catherine will perform a piece inspired by a letter written in 1665 by merchant John Moore during the Great Plague. The story has been written by Kate Stonham and produced by Walk Tall Media.