Hunting the Giant's Daughter
At the height of a feast in King Arthur’s court, a young visitor names everyone in the room and asks for help. He is head over heels in love, and all he knows is her name.
As the quest to find the young woman unfolds across star-lit landscapes and old, deep forests, it calls on all the skills and magic of Arthur’s chosen warriors. But when a mythical, ravaging wild boar threatens to destroy all that Arthur has forged, love, bravado and courage are put to the ultimate test.
Hunting the Giant’s Daughter blends dynamic bilingual storytelling for adults with traditional Welsh and jazz-influenced music to bring this adventurous love story vividly to life.
Hunting the Giant’s Daughter is one of the oldest King Arthur stories ever to be found in the British Isles. The source story is recorded in Welsh in The Mabinogion (13th Century). Originally commissioned by Beyond the Border Festival, the show has since been enjoyed in successive tours of Wales, Ireland, Holland and England.
A standard bearer for Welsh language and material, a wonderful blend of music and the spoken word, and a tour de force by three fine artists.Storylines
One of the most compelling nights of storytelling that I have enjoyed in a very long time… truly inspiring...All sorts of intangible traditions have been lost in Wales, but this art of storytelling is slowly been brought back to contemporary audiences by the impressive efforts of Adverse Camber.The Welshman Travels
I’ve seen it twice before and I can’t get enough... on every telling I get more deeply immersed in the themes.Audience Feedback
More about the show
Hunting the Giant’s Daughter is based on Culhwch ac Olwen, one of the oldest surviving Arthurian legends, some say the oldest, ever found written in Welsh.
The story has been shared aloud since the beginnings of the Celtic world and was recorded in medieval manuscripts the White Book of Rhydderch (c1350) and the Red Book of Hergest (c1400).
Complementing Michael Harvey’s energetic and virtuoso telling style, Lynne Denman and Stacey Blythe bring their powerful female voices to the world of the story – a story in which male characters (Arthur included) circle around the orbit of seen and unseen women, who influence and at times dictate the action.
Stories and music go hand in hand throughout the show. The music is drawn from a wide range of sources, contemporary Welsh songs, traditional melodies, original compositions by both Lynne and Stacey and improvisation in response to how the story is told.
