We're pleased to be welcoming back imitating the dog next month with their bold retelling of a classic novel combining live performance and digital technology.

Joseph Conrad’s influential and timely novel, Heart of Darkness, will be staged here from March 19-23 by one of the UK’s most original and innovative performance theatre companies.

Written more than 100 years ago, Heart of Darkness, which explored the journey of Conrad’s narrator Charles Marlow travelling up the Congo river, is a tale of lies and brutal greed and of the dark heart which beats within us all.

Now retold as a journey of a black woman through wartorn Europe, the play explores a forsaken landscape lost to the destructive lust for power and emerges as a tale for our time.

imitating the dog Co-Artistic Director Pete Brooks said: “For imitating the dog, it was important that we retold Conrad’s story for audiences today, and from a new perspective.”

Pete is a founder member of imitating the dog along with Lancaster-based Andrew Quick. Their work was last seen in the city at Lancaster Castle during Light Up Lancaster in November.

imitating the dog’s last production here was their critically acclaimed 2014 adaptation of  A Farewell to Arms.

For 20 years, imitating the dog have been making ground-breaking work seen by hundreds of thousands of people in venues, outdoor festivals and events across the world.

As a company, they are most interested in telling stories and creating beautiful, memorable images for audiences.

Heart of Darkness is suitable for anyone aged 14 plus. Tickets are £17.50/£16 concessions and £15.50/£14 concessions. A talkback free to ticketholders takes place after the March 19 performance.