A STORYTELLING experience with David Evans and Anna Tanvior of Imùlè Theatre will present the premiere of Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” at Crediton Rugby Club on Wednesday, November 2.

It is a family show, described as for ages “from nine-ish to 90-ish” and it will begin at 7.30pm.

David, who lives locally, explained: “It was while I was undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment for throat cancer back in 2012 that I found myself drawn again to this fabulous story.

“It was the courage and tenacity of the old man that helped me through some dark hours.

“That, and wonderful support from my family and friends in the Crediton community - especially from the rugby club.

“So, I thought it appropriate to launch my premiere showing of the work in the heart of the community I have increasingly grown to appreciate.”

Imùlè Theatre was formed in 1990 by David Evans as an experiment with the intention of exploring health and environmental challenges within a framework of cross-cultural perspectives and practices.

After a conventional start garnering excellent reviews in the 1991 Edinburgh Fringe the company focused its energies on contexts where it believed it could achieve most social impact.

Educational settings ranged from primary schools to universities while community venues included village halls, a rugby club and numerous festivals. Around that time David Evans became involved with Exeter University in a research project in which he applied theatre approaches to promoting adolescent sexual health. Imùlè has a policy of collaborating with artists who themselves have worked with and been influenced by important practitioners and thinkers from the 20th Century including Grotowski, Boal, Lecoq, Barber, Tanvir, Soyinka, Okagbue and Erobi.

Anna Tanvir trained as a singer at the Royal Academy of Music. In France she is billed as an Indo-Irish singer and harpist. Her international career has taken her all over France, Madagascar, India and Canada, always seeking out opportunities to collaborate and perform with musicians from different traditions. Anna sings in many different languages and her solo performance encompasses the themes of love, life and loss.

David Evans trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School but after four years in mainstream theatre, including nine months in the Bristol Old Vic Company, he retrained as a science teacher at Exeter University. Unable to renounce theatre, David combines Imùlè Theatre work with teaching and an academic career. He is studying for a PhD in Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The Old Man and the Sea marks a return of Imùlè to more a formal audience/performer dynamic. Notwithstanding that constraint, the work is an improvised storytelling experience, in which the narrative, musical accompaniment and audience responses interact reciprocally.

Desperately down on his luck the old man, Santiago, resolves to row his skiff far out into the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba in an attempt to catch a marlin big enough to redeem himself in the eyes of his fishing community and his erstwhile fishing companion, the boy Manolin. He hooks a fish of mythical proportions and commits himself to a life and death struggle with an adversary as great as he is strange. The old man loves the fish as a brother but is unmoveable in his resolve to kill it or die in the ordeal. This work enables the performers to bring influences from their long and varied careers in cross-cultural performance, but remains, first and foremost, a storytelling experience worthy of the Hemingway’s epic tale.

Doors will open at 7pm and admission is free-of-charge, although donations will be accepted depending on what people feel they can afford.

Alan Quick