Fringe hit Bread and the Beer heads for Lowry in June

SOLAR Productions tour writer and performer Tristan Bernays' The Bread & the Beer – arriving at the Lowry in June.

The Bread & The Beer is described as a thrilling one-man poem-come-ballad that collides the myths of ancient England with the heartbeat of modern Britain.

Bernays tells the tale of John Barleycorn – the wild-eyed, long-haired god of drink, dance and madness – as he reawakens after thousands of years of sleep beneath the stone and mortar of modern London. A shadow of his former-self, he awakes to find a grey and lifeless world filled with grey and lifeless people.

Perturbed by this lack of imagination and spontaneity, Barleycorn thinks it’s time those around him remember what it’s like to have a little fun. Not content with intoxicating just the normal man and woman on the street, soon John ensures that even policemen are rioting and Royalty are rutting in this modern myth that attempts to understand the contradictions within English identity.

The Bread & The Beer plays the Lowry on 21 June.