Combining music, animation and archive film with a captivating monologue, David Bramwell will take you on a magical candle-lit odyssey, in search of the occult secrets of our rivers, and a drowned village which has long haunted his memories.

From Doncaster (where he grew up) Bramwell travels up the river Don and back in time, through the ladybird plague and drought of 1976 to the heavily polluted Don of Sheffield's steel industry, up into the Pennines and back into a pre-Christian era when rivers and springs were worshipped as living deities.

Along the journey Bramwell battles with his own thalassophobia (the fear of what lurks beneath); learns about hydromancy from magician Alan Moore, discovers a unique forest of figs growing on the banks of the Don and encounters Jarvis Cocker on his own adventures, sailing down the Don on an inflatable inner tube.

His journey finally brings him face to face with the goddess of primordial waters, Danu, who gave her name to the Don.

The Cult of Water is a profound meditation on the symbolic power of rivers and inland waterways and the ways in which they affect our sense of
well-being.

David Bramwell is a performer, award-winning broadcaster for BBC Radio 4 and the author of The Haunted Moustache, The Odditorium and the Mysterium. His Cult of Water has dazzled audiences from the Soho Theatre and Berlin's Occulture festival to OBOD's winter solstice gathering.

www.drbramwell.com

Followed by The Cult Of Water, Bristol based herbalist Ann Freeman will talk about an intuitive journey she undertook which led to the uncovering of St Edith's well in Castle Park Bristol.

Quotes:

'Hauntingly poetic' - Ronald Hutton

'An enlightening journey back and forth through time' - Caught By the River

'Dreamy hypnotic production' - Fortean Times

'An extraordinary thing' - Mark Radcliffe BBC 6Music

'An extraordinary performance which combined film, music and the spoken word in a way we had never experienced before, evoking humour, nostalgia, intrigue and a sense of awe as the performance unfolded. Truly stunning!' - Philip Carr-Gomm former head druid of OBOD

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