Northener, I think those correspondents are right who believe that your critic is less concerned with how you do what you do, and more with where you do it.
In the days before the revival, it was certainly the practice in social gatherings to take the attitude that what was going on was entertainment and there was no reason to confine entertainment to merely musical matters. Fred Jordan had a song in which at a similar entertainment a man says he can't sing but so as not to disappoint the company when it comes to his turn he is prepared to fight the best man in the room. I'm told that this is not entirely fanciful and happened occasionally in Suffolk. In comparison, wanting to tell a story seems quite mild.
In more modern times, of course, TV and other media have taken up the general entertainment needs of most people, and Folk Clubs were set up, in most cases, as a place in which to perform folksong/music rather than exactly reproduce the old general sessions.
This is not to say many clubs do not welcome, or failing that – accept, other 'turns'. I used to attend a club where occasionally, if we were short of singers, one of our non-singing members would do card tricks. Noone ever complained. But I think the crucial words here are 'occasionally' and 'when we were short of singers'. I doubt if we would have wanted it every week. And it was certainly not an invitation to the local Magic Circle to come and use us as an audience.
Likewise it occasionally happens at clubs I attend that someone who is usually a singer may choose on a particular occasion to tell a story or read a poem. Again, as an occasional variant, this goes down perfectly well. All Folk Clubs and all audiences are different. If I turn up at a Folk Club for the first time I am conservative. I sing a folksong. I don't perform The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in BSL, or sing Agadoo to the tune of Mo Roisin Dhu, which are party tricks I have been known to perform in clubs that I attend more frequently. You need get to know your audience to be able to judge whether they will think a story is an entirely appropriate adjunct to a night celebrating the folk tradition, or a pain in the botty department.
Why should there be any hostility to a story teller?
The answer may be in why people go to the club. There are different types of folkie and in any club a different mindset may predominate.
Firstly there are those who go to sing (I'm sorely tempted to say 'to hear themselves sing'). They are only interested in how many times the MC can get round the room, because that determines how many times they will be allowed to sing. Deep in their hearts they really want all other singers to sing short songs, and all non-singers to pass. The last thing in the world they want is for someone to tell a long story.
Secondly there are those who go to learn by listening to others. Some may welcome the opportunity to broaden their horizons by being shown something entirely different. But many will think 'I'm a singer. There is nothing I can learn from someone who doesn't sing. How long before we get another singer on?'
Thirdly there are those who go to be entertained. They should be ripe for the picking – IF you are entertaining! Everyone has to learn. And everyone does badly when they learn. When a singer is learning and doing badly, the audience may hope he is suddenly struck down by lightning; but more realistically they know the torture will have a finite end which is approaching reasonably rapidly: unless they have decided to do a ballad in which case God help us all, and that is the reason beginners should beware of ballads. But with a storyteller – who knows when it is all going to end? I don't say that to be rude. I have heard some of the great Irish storytellers and part of the attraction is that they appear to ramble off forever only to suddenly and unexpectedly reconnect in the final line. But to get away with that you have to keep the audience enthralled all the way through. Few people who have been bored out of their skull for 15 minutes will then say at the end 'Oh, that was an interesting twist! I hope they do something like that again next week.'
Length of anything can be a killer. I mention ballads. I love the ballads, and would happily sing them all the time. But I know that is not what audiences want (unless you select your audience by announcing that it is a Ballad Session) and I select a variety of material accordingly.
[As a storyteller you probably know the story that Seamus Ennis used to tell of Henry Bohannon who when learning the pipes – rather badly – was approached by a Little Person who offered to help him learn to play, but with the condition that he could play only for his own satisfaction or that of others, but not both. He chose to play for his own satisfaction, and was delighted by how he played. But he continued to play in public and was always dismayed by how much he was criticised. One day the Little Person reappeared and offered him the chance, once and for all, to reverse his wish. He accepted, and became renowned as a great piper. But he was always himself dissatisfied by his performances. There are just so many lessons there for us all that I don't know where to start!]
I really think that if you are ever going to perform non-songs in a predominantly Song club, you need to build up the confidence of the audience that what you do will not be longer than your ability to sustain the interest. Even the best can make the mistake. I once saw the late Ernie Dyson (lovely man, did humourous dialect poems from Yorkshire) at a session where he did the opening verse of Macaulay's How Horatius Kept The Bridge. I looked forward to the amusing parody that it was bound to turn into. At the end of the second verse I was becoming a little impatient for him to get to the point. At the end of the third verse it suddenly struck my brain with an icepick that he was going to do all 70 verses. And 25 minutes later (exacerbated by the fact that he kept forgetting bits and going back to the previous couple of verses to 'get a run at it') that is what he had done.
I may have rambled on too much. I am a singer not a storyteller!