The Cult Of Water by David Bramwell

November 23, 2018January 15, 2019
by Liverpool Arts Lab

Following Daisy Eris Campbell’s brilliant Pigspurt’s Daughter show, that we hosted alongside Bido Lito! at the Hope Street Theatre back in August, we’re delighted to invite David Bramwell, another guest from Brighton, to perform a solo-show in Liverpool.

The Cult of Water combines original music and film, art and archive footage with a captivating monologue. As a one-man show it is a feast for the ears, eyes, heart and soul, taking audiences on a dream-like journey in search of the ‘spirit of dark and lonely waters’.

Using the river Don as inspiration, award winning presenter for BBC Radio 3 and 4, David Bramwell journeys back in time to its source, through drowned villages, ladybird plagues and the devastation of our landscapes by the industrial revolution, finally arriving in a pre-Christian era, when our rivers were revered as goddesses; and wells and springs were portals to another realm. His search brings him face to face with Danu, the goddess of primordial waters.

Along the journey David learns about hydromancy from author Alan Moore, battles with his own thalassophobia (the fear of ‘what lurks beneath’); unearths little-known stories, rituals and myths that surround our waterways and ends by reflecting on the profound ways in which water affects our well-being.

While using the Don as the focal point for his adventures, at heart this is a meditation on the symbolic power of rivers, the relationship between water and the feminine and our changing relationship with urban waterways.

Each performance concludes with a Q&A, focusing on the stories and history of the river in the town/city in which the show is being performed and local poet Eleanor Rees will assist David in illuminating the folklore surrounding the River Mersey.