Dr Embers Verse and Tales

Dr Embers has just moseyed in from the West... Tonight's tale follows a lone Texas Ranger and his faithful horse, Friday, as they ride into a town on the brink of its greatest trial. Faced with the gravest threat the townsfolk have ever known, the Ranger carries no rifle, no grand army... only an ordinary stone and a quiet confidence that it may yet save them all. How can a single stone stand...

"He who is feared by many must fear many." — Publilius Syrus Fear is ever present. No matter how big, brutal, or fearsome we may appear, we are all shaped by it. It warns us of danger, keeps us alive, and reminds us of our mortality. Yet left unchecked, it can become a prison of our own making. --------- Recently I was challenged to take a simple children's story and transform it in...

Dr Embers is bringing stories on the road. Tonight, we learn the tale of the Big Nasty Knight and discover that fear is never far away—even for the most fearsome of fellows... The Fire is Lit! Follow the journey on Instagram: @Doctor. Embers Speak with me directly: doctor.embers@outlook.com If something you hear stays with you,  you are always welcome to share it —  a thought, a reflection, or eve...

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." — Albert Einstein Tonight, we return to the hearth for a more personal conversation as contributor Gordon Banks shares the inspiration behind the poems he recently read for us and reflects on the importance of imagination, creativity, and simple fun. In a world that often prizes practicality and reason above all else...

"Men are not punished for their sins, but by them."  — Elbert Hubbard We often imagine that consequences arrive from outside ourselves, but perhaps the choices we make carry their own rewards and punishments. Tonight, award-winning storyteller Jason Buck takes us into a modern tale, a place where every choice will leave an echo. Settle into your favourite chair, draw a little closer to t...

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." — Albert Einstein This week on Verse and Tales , we leave reason at the door and step into the wonderfully absurd world of nonsense poetry. Join us as we sail with Edward Lear's adventurous Jumblies , venture into Lewis Carroll's strange and perilous realm of Jabberwocky , and conclude beneath moonlit skies...

“ If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours; if it doesn’t, it never was. ” In this episode of Verse & Tales , we step onto the shores of myth and memory to explore the haunting legend of the Selkie — beings caught between land and sea, love and freedom. Through this tale, we are asked a timeless question:  can love ever truly exist where there is captivity? Tonight’s st...

“What people believe prevails over the truth.” — Sophocles In every age, mankind finds something new to fear, something new to believe in — dragons in the dark, madness in the moonlight, or the quiet anxieties of the modern world. The superstition changes… but the instinct does not. Tonight, I step aside and welcome a new voice to the hearth. All of tonight’s works have been written and performed...

Tonight, By the Hearth takes a different form. Rather than a tale told by the fire, I'm joined by a fellow poet, storyteller, and co-creator Joanna Vale for an intimate conversation exploring the inspiration behind her latest season — a collection of stories and poems shaped by the lessons of nature. Together, we discuss the ideas hidden beneath each piece: what rivers remember, what owls wit...

“We see the world… not as it is… but as we are.” — Anaïs Nin How often do we mistake our own perspective… for truth? How often do we look… and believe we have seen? Tonight’s episode invites us… to loosen that certainty…  to step beyond ourselves…  and to inhabit… something other. In Beltane Fire and other poems … Joanna Vale brings a collection that asks not that we observe the world differently…...

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” — Henri Bergson How often do we pass by the ordinary…  without ever truly seeing it? In a world that moves ever faster, we grow accustomed to glancing rather than looking…  to judging rather than understanding.  And yet—what if the dull, the dark, the unremarkable…  were only waiting for us to look again? Tonight, by the fire, we turn to...

“We are always getting ready to live, but never living.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Tonight, we leave the hearth behind… and carry the fire out into the woods. In this episode of Verse and Tales , we explore Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats — a poem that captures a fleeting but wonderous moment of beauty… Where the weight of life is set aside, and something deeper takes hold. As the nightingale sings...

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Tonight, by the fire, we turn to a tale as old as memory itself —  How the Nightingale got its song. There is an old story, its origins long forgotten, that tells how the nightingale came by its voice — not through grandeur, nor beauty of form, but through something far rarer… some...

From The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare “If you prick us, do we not bleed?  If you poison us, do we not die?  And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” In this final By the Hearth episode of Verse & Tales , we reflect upon a season shaped by exile, memory, and the quiet cost of survival. From soldiers scarred by winter battlefields, to hollow men wandering through the echoes of tr...

Recently, I led my first historical walk through Wapping—exploring the lives of those who once called those streets home. To bring that world closer, I made use of a set of restored wax recordings belonging to a Mr Jonathan Hargreaves, a merchant of the area. What you are about to hear… are those recordings. If you’d like to move through them, you can use the following time markers: Prospect of Wh...

“We who survived the camps are not true witnesses.  This is an uncomfortable notion…  we survivors are only a small and abnormal minority.”  Primo Levi In this episode of Verse & Tales , we explore exile, belonging, and the quiet loneliness carried by those who find themselves without a place to call home. Our journey moves through poetry and reflection — from silence, to sorrow, to the bitter...

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.”  — Viet Thanh Nguyen Yet it is not only soldiers who carry those battles with them. For many who flee the chaos, the war follows close behind — across oceans, across borders, and into the uneasy memories of those who receive them. Tonight, we take our fire to the sea, to visit a place upon the coast shaped b...

“I have had 80 years to forget it… I still can’t.”  — Harry Patch Tonight, we take our humble flame into the long shadow cast after war. For as Harry Patch — the last surviving British soldier of the First World War trenches — once said, some battles do not end when the guns fall silent. This evening we explore what remains when the powerful have finished their games and peace has been declared. W...

“What happens in war isn’t just what you do. It’s what you become.”  — Karl Marlantes, Vietnam veteran In this episode of Verse & Tales , we journey into a frozen landscape gripped by winter. A Man in Winter is a story of conflict, identity, and consequence. It invites us to look beyond banners and rhetoric — beyond uniforms and ideals — and to consider the person beneath them. War reduces peo...

This episode is a companion piece to the previous four episodes of the season. Tonight, there is no poem.  No dramatic reading.  No new tale brought to the fire. Instead, we pause. By the Hearth is a reflective interlude — a kind of director’s commentary — where I step out from behind the performance and share the thought process beneath the stories. Across The Raven , The Monkey’s Paw , The Highw...

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard In this episode, we return to The Highwayman — a tale of love, inevitability, and the cruel arithmetic of time. Some stories only make sense once they are over.  Once the hoofbeats have faded.  Once the shot has rung out.  Once the road lies empty. Listening now, we know,  that every promise is already haun...

“If you let one ant stand up to us, they all stand up to us.” Tyranny does not rise with banners or chants — it rises quietly, through silence. In this episode of By the Hearth , I bring three poems to life: Invictus , No Land of the Free , and Five Men in a Boat — exploring power, voice, fear, and the cost of not silence. This is a spoken word poetry episode about:  silence in society, personal r...

"We are our choices" - Jean-Paul Sartre Three wishes offered. Each seems harmless. Each carries a cost unseen. In this episode of Dr Embers: Verse & Tale , W. W. Jacobs’ classic short story The Monkey’s Paw is read by the fire — not as a warning, but as a journey into choice, consequence, and the quiet danger of wanting without understanding. This is a story about decisions made in h...

“He who fights with monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster.”  — Friedrich Nietzsche Many know The Raven for its gothic beauty and haunting rhythm. But beneath the darkness lies something even more powerful — a grief so profound it slowly gives way to madness. In this episode of Dr Embers: Verse & Tale , you are invited to experience Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven thro...

Before the fire truly burns, there is a spark. This short tale is offered as a quiet introduction to a new world —  a glimpse of the atmosphere, the voice, and the journey that lies ahead. Not every story needs to be explained.  Some are simply meant to be felt. Consider this a moment by the hearth… to settle in, to listen, to prepare for what is to come. The first full journey begins this Sunday...