Janina Vigurs Storytelling

12/10/2025

I had a brilliant night listening to poetry and songs from John Hegley courtesy of .
While I'm not able to perform due to my VERY broken ankle, I can listen as I still have two ears that work perfectly.

I've loved John's poetry for a long time. His stoic delivery of the absurd and loving care of the ordinary speaks to my heart.

We worked together over 25 years ago on a production of the 1950s musical The Pajama Game at Birmingham Rep. I was part of the stage crew, building and shifting scenery and he was front and centre, singing, dancing and playing a man from America and not Luton.

We spoke about it and marvelled at what a ridiculously long time ago 1999 was. He was then, and remains now, a very good human.

What with my joy at discovering poetry on neurodiversity and delight at playing with words I fear, dear reader that I am being dragged into the riptide of prose.

I will never leave the mainstream of storytelling, but I am developing a tributary that's meandering across lush meadows. I bloody love words and I look forward to continuing to be irreverent, passionate, ridiculous and enthusiastic about many things in an additional medium.

Scroll to see an unsolicited photo of three people who collectively managed to get me out of the house for the first time in six weeks. And it wasn't to a hospital. I bloody love them too.

27/08/2025

I'll be at tomorrow evening squeezing the last drops of joy from the summer holidays.

Bring your kids down from 6-7pm, grab a drink from the bar, dinner from the food trucks, I'll fill them full of smiles and tire them out in the garden and you can have an hour off duty.

Sound good?
See you there!

26/08/2025

New fings brewing..TLDR workshops will be happening!

I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year and a rather lovely thing that it's brought to the table is permission.

Permission to be the slightly awkward but quite affable big silly that I've always been, but not entirely sure that I was allowed to be that.

I'm relaxing into the fact that my sparkling brain never rests, and I'm pushing myself in new directions to keep it happy.

Part of that will be workshops for parents and those who work with small people, which is hugely exciting.

Other things will be clown training for my performance development, some therapeutic nature-connection work with young people, and a writing and performance collaboration with a brilliant (and equally silly) artist.

All this alongside my already solid offer of storytelling for schools, community groups, at my Wonder Monger nights, parties, festivals, village fêtes and opening of donkey sanctuaries*.

Anyhow, here's a flipping brilliant and cute photo of my face by the flipping brilliant

*I've never told in a donkey sanctuary before but would LOVE to. Who can hook me up with a donkey person?

thought you guys would appreciate knowing.

24/07/2025

I'm running out of words to describe my feelings.

I genuinely don't know how and .lammy are sleeping at night.

Please, if you're not the sort of person to email your MP, maybe you could be today.

Link is in my bio

24/07/2025

12/07/2025

Even during the baking 30 degree heat, you can be assured of a SHOW from .circus and we'll look absolutely stunning doing it too.
Huge thanks to and Watford's finest families for being so much fun today. You played hard in the sunshine!!

26/06/2025

If you're at Glastonbury, it would be beyond awesome to see you.
Here's where you'll find me storytelling from Thursday to Sunday.

Stay Safe,
Stay Hydrated,
Stay Silly.

🕊️

16/05/2025

Join professional storyteller Janina Vigurs, some hat-stealing monkeys and fox-fighting chickens for an hour of ridiculous stories where animals behave in ways no very good child would dream of, right? Afterwards we'll crack open the dressing up box, crank up the tunes and create our own joyful chaos.

Sunday 1st June, The Craft Café, Droitwich, 10:30am and 2:00pm Suitable for 3-11 years. Tickets in the bio.

Janina would sit far too close to the telly as a child when Rik Mayall's Grim Tales was on. She did indeed get square eyes but also a head jam-packed with fairy tales. He told with a grit, gusto and grotesquery that quite simply hooked her like a trout.

So far she's told stories for The National Trust, Penguin Random House, Cambridge Folk Festival, Exeter University and Glastonbury.

Today Rik sits in the pocket of Janina's memory, poking her in the ribs, telling her to treat kids as her equal and be more ridiculous than needed.

07/05/2025

Anything can happen when I'm storytelling and I'm pretty good at rolling with it, but today we had a whole school, full scale evacuation and fire engines...

It wasn't a drill. Thankfully it was just an overly sensitive detector that sent nearly 300 children onto the school field and we were allowed back in after an impromptu playtime.

Standing out like woman with a pigeon on her head, I attracted a lot of curiosity on the playground, so I sat and answered many questions about what I was wearing and why I was here. It finished with ten children from across the year groups and I, improvising a story about a Queen and Princess who lived in a "normal people's" house. Absolutely priceless. Who knows what their parents will think when they go home tonight!

After the excitement, all 90 reception children helped me tell Gruffalo-adjacent stories and discuss the nature of storytelling afterwards. One boy asked if our imaginations stop when we sleep, which made my heart so incredibly happy and gave fuel to some phenomenal chat.
Excellent work RA Butler Infants, and excellent provision from the staff.

20/04/2025

Happy Easter! I hope you have a wonderful day.
It's a great time to get outside, find signs of spring.

Know that despite whatever is happening in your world, life is always changing but there's always joy happening somewhere.

Smiles,
Janina x

23/03/2025

I had a gloriously rich afternoon telling The Nine Crying Dolls at

I hadn't told it for ten years, and this was an audience of adults, not children, but we all had a delicious time.

There is SUCH an appetite for storytelling in the little community Vanessa has created, and in such a brilliant venue it's easy to see why.

I also took Bonnie and her wonky eye with me. She wore her blue outfit and made some new friends, swipe to see them all vibing in a way only haunted dolls can in slide 5.

Ahhh, happy days!!

25/02/2025

Precious.

This sweet old lady was living on the streets until four months ago, she came to us to live out her years in the comfort and security that she deserved.

I'm so incredibly glad we were able to give that to her.

She decided that this morning she had some spiritual cat business to attend to, so left this plane, curled on her favourite chair and heated blanket.

In the last few weeks she needed a lot of care as I nursed the site of the increasing tumor that had already claimed her ear and voice. She took it so incredibly well, urgently reminding me about her post-treatment treats if I was slow in remembering.

The sweetest girl who asked for nothing but deserved everything.

We love you.

💖 Precious 💖