WELCOME TO CORNWALL – but it might not be the one you see on TV...

The fact that Cornwall is the second poorest region in northern Europe will pass most holidaymakers by. Only seeing the periphery, where the blue sea and white surf meets the land, they won’t see that Camborne, a former mining town where all the well-paid jobs disappeared over twenty years ago, has one of the biggest foodbanks in the country; they won’t see that almost a third of Cornish children live in poverty and that there are even children who live a few miles from the sea who have never been to see it.

Penzance poet, Gray Lightfoot, with the help of Kate Barden and Robert Erskine, will present a short play for voices called SEA FEAR (taken from Gray’s poem of the same name) which imagines a conversation, high up on Carn Brea, between a poet and a young Redruth woman whose children have never seen the sea.

The evening is completed with more of Gray’s poems about Cornish issues of second homes, lack of housing and decent jobs, deserted villages and over-tourism.

Two short stories, written by Ross James and Catherine Leyshon, both set in Camborne and pertinent to these issues will also be performed.

Tickets are free, but are limited. Pay what you can donations to the CPR Foodbank will be gratefully accepted.

Limited parking is available on site. New Cut car park (free after 4pm) is a short walk away.

“The show, Gray Lightfoot’s ‘Welcome to Cornwall – but it’s not the one you might see on TV’ was both thought provoking and, at times, hilarious.”
Kath Morgan – The Writing Retreat

Check out Gray’s poetry at graylightfoot.co.uk.