Anita Best: one of many tangents in "An Evening with Uncle Val"

Anita Best as a tangential story in "An Evening with Uncle Val" by Andy Jones

In An Evening with Uncle Val currently playing at the LSPU Hall in St. John's, Newfoundland, Andy Jones is regaling audiences with a labyrinthic tour through the letters of Uncle Val. Uncle Val is a well loved old slipper of a character that anyone who has followed Andy Jones in the theatre over the years has come to cherish. Modeled on the story teller Francis Colbert, Uncle Val is a subtle commentator on the shifting sands of tradition - a chuckle machine that warms your heart while stretching your brains reflection muscles.

Several of the asides in the evening pertain to Anita Best and in fact in several ways and places Andy Jones pays homage to Anita Best. The Internet being what it is - you can read an interview with Anita Best that covers some of the same ground alluded to in An Evening with Uncle Val - a 2001 conversation that Elinor Benjamin' had with Anita Best that was published in the Canadian Folk Music Bulletin is available for the reading, if not the telling, online. In this conversation Anita recalls the story telling talents of Pius Power and a version of Cinderella he told her young daughter Kate wherein oversized feet are shaved down with pocket knives and Cinderella herself opts out of the race.

Anita Best is the voice of Mary Dalton's poems on Rattling Books audio edition of Merrybegot. Along with poet Agnes Walsh she recently represented Rattling Books in Iceland.

Listen to the voice of Anita Best reading a poem from Merrybegot.