Clever Enough to Cheat a Swindler
Who is the cleverest of them all?
Video not yet publicly available
This tale has been recorded and will be uploaded to the video gallery towards the end of 2026, where it will be available to watch for free - together with many, many other tales.
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If you have a particular reason for wanting to watch the recording before it is publicly available, send a mail and we can discuss this.
ThIs is one of those stories I remember meeting in the past, but cannot remember where. So I was delighted to watch Marion Strencioch telling it in German as Der Lastenträger und der List.
Marion kindly pointed me to a rather more complex Yugoslav variant: Der Lastträger und der Hodscha.
I have greatly enjoyed developing the tale into my own version - a process explored in detail in my From Page to Stage workshops.
If anyone has further background information about the provenance of the story, please mail me.
More comic tales
The video gallery has become very extensive. So if you would enjoy more tales like this, here are a few suggestions.
The video clips here are all amateur quality, shot in various theatres or, as here, in my home studio.
Their intention is just to show the range of my storytelling and give a flavour of a live performance.
Permission is granted for use in non-commercial educational contexts.
The videos are © Richard Martin.
Professionally recorded CDs and DVDs are available here.
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Permission to tell outlines my views on copyright
For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling