Summer in Cornwall brings out the best of outdoor performances in some truly amazing places – we’ve rounded up our favourites for you here, but as always you can find even more events on the What’sOn Cornwall website.
To make the best of the summer season, here are a few tips from the team at Cornwall 365:
Life’s a Dream
Miracle Theatre
Wednesday 15th June Mount Pleasant Eco Park, Porthtowan
Thursday 16th June Trebah Amphitheatre
Friday 17th June Trebah Amphitheatre
Saturday18th June Lost Gardens of Heligan
Tuesday 21st June Pengenna Manor nr Wadebridge
Wednesday 22nd June Headland Hotel, Newquay
Thursday 23rd June Tregrehan Gardens, St Austell
Friday 24th June The Stables, Helston
An epic fable of love, war and destiny…
A young Woman, travelling through a wild and mountainous region, discovers a Prince who has been imprisoned by his father since birth, to foil a prophecy that he will bring disaster to the world and death to the King. Prompted by the Woman, the King is overcome with remorse and sets his son free, giving him the chance to prove his good character. But is it ever possible to escape one’s fate?
Find out more on the Miracle Theatre website.
As the Crow Flies
Thursday 23rd & Friday 24th June
Our story begins in a town on top of a hill, surrounded by a deep, dark forest. We emerge through thickly knotted branches on a journey to unknown destinations unwinding like a thickly bound spool of yarn.
The story is told by a solo travelling performer, Alex Goodman, a woman from a family of travelling performance panoramists, since lost in time and now journeying across the South West hawking stories and singing to the hedgerows.
As the Crow Flies is a tale of unexpected characters and extraordinary feats, inspired by sailors and forest dwellers. Performed using a hand built Moving Panorama Theatre. With intricate illustrations, story-telling and music, this is an intimate show for family audiences of all ages.
This promises to be a magical family evening in the park!
Book online or call the box office on 01726 879500
The Trench at Levant Mine
Friday 1st – Sunday 10th July
Collective Arts present a theatrical experience that will simulate life in the trenches using an area of ‘No Man’s Land’ landscape at Levant Mine. Audience members will become participants who ‘enlist’ and are given a real identity, taken to the trenches and discover for themselves the realities of life on the Western Front and the build up to going over the top.
The experience will culminate in the mess tent, where participants will discover the real-life fate of their assigned character in a fascinating exhibition curated by the National Trust.
Visit the Collective Arts website.
GENERATE
Luca Si lvestrini, K ip Johnson & SALT 2016 Company
Saturday 2nd July
Wadebridge Town Centre (Assemble at the John Betjeman Centre from 4.30pm onwards.)
Pay what you can: no amount to small or large!
Meetings and partings, past encounters on platforms, and the connections between people are all brought to life in this piece devised and choreographed by Luca Silvestrini, in collaboration with dancer Kip Johnson. Take this guided walk around Wadebrige and you’ll encounter performances from a cast of intergenerational performaners. From the John Betjeman Centre, right through to Wadebridge Town Hall, parents and their toddlers, young people and older dancers will take their inspiration from Wadebridge’s history as a railway town.
Visit the Dance Republic website for more information.
SHORELINE
Simon Birch Dance
Sat 9th July & Sun 10th July, Watergate Bay
Mon 11th July & Tues 12th July, Sennen Cove
Wed 13th July & Thurs 14th July, Kynance Cove
Pay what you can: no amount to small or large!
Whether you live by it or make special trips to it, we are all, deep down, connected to the sea; often without ever knowing why. Shoreline is an ode to the coastline, and all that it means to us. This performance is an experience for all ages, and one we hope will stay with you forever. Powerfully danced by 6 superb performers supported by a choir; right on the edge of the sea. You will be immersed in this event… you might even get wet feet!
Visit the Dance Republic website for more information.
Die Fledermaus
Duchy Opera
Saturday 9th July
Come with Duchy Opera and Director Helen Tiplady on a voyage of imagination and discovery, as they re-imagine Strauss’s wonderful comic opera, Die Fledermaus. Join the weird and wonderful inhabitants of a waste management centre, weaving an increasingly funny and complicated plot around a bat mask, a pocket watch, several mistaken identities and copious amounts of champagne, culminating in a joyous and inebriated climax! Featuring the beautiful and memorable music of Johann Strauss II.
Tyn Daga with the Vox Choir
Saturday 9th July
This trio effortlessly blends music from Madagascar to Macedonia with rarely heard time signatures, an array of authentic instruments and intricate arrangements as well as original material. Described as ‘world class’ by The Cornish Guardian, they are a ‘tour de force’ of world music.
Book tickets through the CRBO website.
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk
Kneehigh Theatre
Thursday 14th – Sunday 31st July
Meet Marc and Bella Chagall: The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk! Partners in life and on canvas, Marc and Bella are immortalised as the picture of romance. But whilst on canvas they flew, in life they walked through some of the most devastating times in history.
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk traces this young couple as they navigate the Pogroms, the Russian Revolution, and each other. Emma Rice’s final production as Kneehigh’s Artistic Director is drawn in a theatrical language as fluid as Chagall’s paintings, and woven throughout with music and dance inspired by the Russian Jewish tradition.
Find out more from Kneehigh here.
Man-Engine
Monday 25th July Tavistock Bedford Square
Monday 25th July Tamar Valley Centre (Drakewalls)
Monday 25th July Kit Hill (top car park)
Tuesday 26th July Liskeard (Barras Street)
Tuesday 26th July Minions (Minions Heritage Centre car park)
Wednesday 27th July Lostwithiel (Cattle Market car park)
Thursday 28th July St Austell (Trinity Street)
Thursday 28th July Wheal Martyn (Carthew)
Friday 29th July Trewithen (Farmyard)
Saturday 30th July Truro (Lemon Quay)
Saturday 30th July Wheal Jane (Baldhu)
Monday 1st August Wheal Coates (car park, St Agnes)
Tuesday 2nd August Redruth (Kresen Kernow site)
Tuesday 2nd August East Pool Mine (Michell’s Shaft, Pool)
Tuesday 2nd August Heartlands (Pool)
Wednesday 3rd August Camborne (Tyacks)
Wednesday 3rd August King Edward Mine (Troon)
Wednesday 3rd August Godolphin House (unnamed road adjacent to the house)
Thursday 4th August Hayle (Foundry Square)
Friday 5th August Penzance (Market Jew Street)
Saturday 6th August St Just (Fore Street)
Saturday 6th August Botallack Mine (Botallack)
Saturday 6th August Geevor Tin Mine (Pendeen)
The largest puppet ever made in the UK, living proof that Cornwall is still home to world class engineering! The 10 metre high steam-powered giant will travel the length of the Cornish Mining Landscape over the course of two weeks, with celebratory events at each resting point. No-one but his creators know what he looks like. Come see for yourself and be amazed!
NEPTUNALIA
Cscape Dance Company
Tuesday 26th – Thursday 28th July
Tuesday 2nd -Thursday 4th, Tuesday 9th-Thursday 11th August
Take the plunge, the water’s lovely, taste the wine and the salty bubbly… On a storm filled night when clouds were the colour of bad tempers, the briny sea separated Neptune from his son Neleus. But it’s been years… and today, something has washed up on the beach that is neither fish nor bird nor boat. It’s the morning of The Neptunalia Ball, but what or who has arrived? Told through dance, story and installation, this is an odyssey of growing up and leaving home. Of prodigal sons and daughters, tattoo parlours, journeys and mysteries. Through wit, warmth, beauty and dancing, Cornwall’s leading dance company will take us all on a journey in which we’ll recognise a Neptune, a mother, and a child. A delight for all the family!
Book through the CRBO website, call 01726 879500, or visit Tourist Offices in St Ives, Penzance, Falmouth, Truro, St Austell, Bodmin, Looe, Liskeard & Launceston plus Heartlands Redruth and Bookends Fowey.
The Magnificent Three
Miracle Theatre
Friday 5th August Indian Queens Pit
Sunday 7th August Telegraph Museum, Porthcurno
Tuesday 9th August St Mawes Castle
Wednesday 10th & Thursday 11th August Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis
Friday 12th August Hannahs, Seale Hayne
Saturday 13th August Gyllyndune Gardens, Falmouth
Tuesday 16th & Wedesday 17th August Penlee Park, Penzance
Thursday 18th August Caerhays Beach Café, Gorran
Friday 19th August Restormel Castle, Lostwithiel
Sunday 21st August Perranporth School
Wednesday 24th August The Castle, Bude
Thursday 25th August Carlyon Beach, St Austell
Friday 26th August Boscawen Park, Truro
Saturday 27th & Sunday 28th August Enys Gardens, Penryn
Wednesday 31st August Plen-An-Gwary, St Just
Friday 2nd & Saturday 3rd September Trebah Amphitheatre
Gather up your posse it’s time to head out to the Wild Frontier for a rootin’-tootin’, side-splittin’, finger-clickin’, toe-tappin’, saloon-door-swingin’, double-cross-dressin’, Hoe-down dancin’, quick-draw slinging, Spaghetti Western adventure….YEEHAW!
Heading west across Dead Man’s Prairie, the trail hits a watering hole called Hope Springs. Not a lot ever happened here: mostly lonesome strangers, minding their own business, passing on through but then word got out that the railroad was coming and the town got a whole lot wilder. Seems even most trusted folk can’t always be counted on when there’s money to be made…
When times are bad, salvation can show up in darned unexpected shapes.
No one in Hope Springs will ever forget The Magnificent Three.
Find out more from Miracle Theatre.
FUP
Kneehigh Theatre
Saturday 6th August – Sunday 21st August
The Santee family are unconventional, to say the least.
One hundred year old Grandaddy Jake and his enormous grandson Tiny live life on the fringes, drinking whiskey, building fences, boasting of immortality. But then, Fup arrives – an ass-kicking, web-footed, feathery sonofagun. See, Fup is a duck. A very big duck. A very big duck indeed… And she is going to change their world forever.
FUP is a big-hearted, uproarious modern fable about family, love and nature set in a weird and wild Cornwall not so different from this one. Featuring live, foot-stomping music, quacking puppetry and Kneehigh’s infamous eccentricity and charm, FUP is a story like no other.
Visit the Kneehigh Theatre website for booking and more information.
St Stythians Male Voice Choir
Sunday 14th August
The beautiful St Stythians Male Voice Choir return to Trebah to play from 2.00pm-4.00pm. Performance included in cost of entry ticket.
Sense & Sensibility
Chapterhouse Theatre Company
Tuesday 16th August
Join Chapterhouse Theatre Company this summer for an evening of Regency wonderment as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood make their first forays into the exquisite world of eighteenth-century society. Picnic with family and friends under a starlit summer evening as you follow the sisters as they find their path and lose their hearts under a beautiful summer sky in their quest to find the perfect balance of sense and sensibility. Bring a picnic rug or low backed chair to sit on, and dress for the weather!
Find out more from the Pentillie Castle website.
CAMPERVAN OF LOVE
New Art Club
Wednesday 17th & Thursday 18th August kARANdAVE, Mawgan Porth. Pay what you can: no amount to small or large!
Fri 19th August, Hawksfield, nr Wadebridge (FREE)
A family show that comes out of a bright pink 1970s VW campervan- what more could you want? New Art Club are notoriously witty, riotous in fact. They’ve made a name for themselves as a company who’ve turned contemporary dance on its metaphorical head. But they are more than two blokes who occasionally wear spandex, they’re smart too: smart, funny and they can dance – a winning combination. This is a show for all the family… and all of your friends too! Bring a blanket or similar to sit on.
Find out more from Dance Republic here.
Wild Woodland Summer Ball
Thursday 18th August – Monday 4th September
Multi award winning Rogue Theatre returns to the woods this august with a new call to the wild, a festival of summer and a book full of fantastical new stories.
Wild Woodland Summer Ball blends stories of fantastical realism with a carnival atmosphere of escapism and a dance at the wild heart of the woods, with stories for boys, girls and grown-ups who still hear the call of the wild. There will be enchanting live music, thrilling stories, otherworldly performance, explosive acrobatics, fire, dancing, free face painting, and the chance to create something wild and wonderful in a free woodland craft workshop.
Forest creature costumes, faerie-dress, otherworld outfits, party frocks, wild life masks, funny hats, forest finery, frippery, feathers and fancy hairdos are encouraged though not essential. (Grown ups as well as children!)
Book tickets through the CRBO website here.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Asylum
Wednesday 24th – Sunday 28th August
Valentine loves Silvia and Proteus loves Julia – but Proteus is fickle, and falls for Silvia too. When Valentine plots an elopement, Proteus betrays him and Valentine is banished, joining some outlaws in the forest. What are the chances that he’ll be pursued by Silvia, and Silvia by Proteus, and Proteus by Julia, and that all will be waited upon – after a fashion – by their servants Speed and Launce and even Launce’s dog, Crab?
This riotous new production is led by a joyful ensemble of players who will delight with songs, romance and chaos, and hurl Shakespeare’s anarchic comedy into the 21st century. The perfect play for a summer tour!
Find out more from the Kneehigh Theatre website.
Canvas & Rum
North South Theatre
Carn Marth Amphitheatre, Redruth
3rd September
Set in the 1800s, ‘CANVAS & RUM’ is a maritime theatre piece, sailing between the South Sea whalers and the historical Falmouth packet ships, looking at the life of an old shell-backer who left his home in Kernow after a family dispute. This old sea dog takes on the duty of teaching a new shipmate the ropes on board the ocean going ship. Bad luck strikes the vessel and its crew, forcing the return home that had been avoided for decades. Inspired by tales such as ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Heart of the Sea’, but based on historical figures and events in Falmouth, Canvas & Rum is a maelstrom of shanties, sirens, superstitions and sea-sick sailors.
All aboard for an adventure on the high seas.
Visit the Carn Marth website here.
Find out more from North South Theatre here.
The Crucible
Monday 12th – Friday 16th September
“They believed they held the candle that would light the world”…
Hysteria, superstition and desire ignite a small community. As secrets cascade, persecution threatens the integrity of husband and wife.
Miller’s timeless classic is given new charge by cube. Electric dialogue from a talented cast.
Peter Pan
Monday 26th – Friday 30th September
Scary Little Girls return to Minack with an all-female interpretation of J.M.Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’.
Magical, charming, and poignant, this production will capture the hearts of those who already love the classic as well as those coming to it for the first time.
Book tickets at the Minack Theatre website.
Joe Francis
Lusty Glaze Sundowner Sessions
Lusty Glaze Beach, Newquay
Friday 30th September
Summer is all about endless evenings, relaxation and music, and Lusty Glaze’s series of Sundowner Sessions capture the essence of this within a picturesque oceanfront setting. Joe Francis is Cornish multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter who has toured the world, and performed alongside some of the biggest acts in music, including Fleet Foxes, Seth Lakeman, Rosanne Cash, Richard Thompson and Paolo Nutini.
Visit the Lusty Glaze Beach website for more information, and to see more acts this summer.
If you like what you see and read please share and if you would like to get involved and contribute a guest blog post to “In the Know” please contact info@cornwall365.org.uk
