The Ballad of Blea Wyke

A young woman wants to see the sea. A stranger stands on a cliff. The last grey seal swims towards the shore. On her eighteenth birthday, Cerys, breaks the city’s lockdown and seeks the coastal cliffs that birthed her, the crumbling landscape drawing her back to her mythic past.

Evocative and lyrical spoken word storytelling that draws inspiration from the traditional Selkie myth and reimagines it for a not-too-distant future on the North Yorkshire coast. A haunting interweaving of story, music, poetry and song, with a rich backdrop of harmonies.

Presented in association with Say Owt and Next Door But One. With opening support from York’s a capella close harmony group PitchWitches.

‘Davies has taken the traditional selkie legend - the old stories of seals shedding their skins to assume human form - and reimagined it for a world shaped by ecological decline, enclosure, fear and control... politically alert...emotionally direct… Woods’ music moves alongside it like a second narrative current... his playing can be spare, tender and ominous within the space of a few minutes. The collaboration is beautifully judged.’

MAG NORTH ★★★★★

‘Davies has a magnetic, mellifluous voice and highly original turn of phrase, allied with a grace of presence, that makes her storytelling so compelling in its combination of contemporary insight, timeless mystery and folkloric mythology... Woods complements Davies’s lyrical word-spinning throughout with simpatico acoustic guitar, loop effects and sporadic harmonies.’

CHARLES HUTCHINSON PRESS ★★★★