Arts Alive presents a show especially for Spring: a celebration in words and music of the iconic but sadly increasingly rare bird associated with this time of year: the cuckoo.
It’s shortly after dawn on the North York Moors and a male cuckoo is having a tiny radio transmitter strapped to his back. A few weeks later he will have flown thousands of miles south, 5km up over the Sahara Desert, sending signals back to England as he travels through Libya, Chad and Congo. For thousands of years the cuckoo has been part of folklore and its call present in songs, poems and stories. But now this bird is threatened in England and we may soon stop hearing that unmistakeable ‘cuck-coo’.
In Gone Cuckoo, storyteller Malcolm Green and musician Josh Green follow the trail of the cuckoo with its special place in our culture as bringer of spring. They explore both fact and folklore surrounding a bird that has even influenced our language: ‘a cuckoo in the nest’ and ‘cuckold’ both derive from the cuckoo’s habit of invading other birds’ nests.
Gone Cuckoo will be at The Market Theatre in Ledbury on Saturday, May 6. To book, call the box office on 07967 517125 or visit themarkettheatre.com
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