FROM AFRICA TO CORNWALL, VIA BRAZIL: THE INCREDIBLE TRUE STORY OF VIOLINIST JOSEPH EMIDY TOLD ON STAGE 

Bish Bash Bosh Productions presents:

THE TIN VIOLIN

Written by Alan M. Kent

Director: Dean Nolan

Touring nationally from 28 May – 4 August 2012

NATIONAL PRESS NIGHT: WEDNESDAY 30 MAY, MINACK THEATRE, PENZANCE, CORNWALL, 7.30PM 

BOX OFFICE: 01736 810181

Following a sell-out tour of Cornwall in 2008, Bish Bash Bosh Productions presents a UK Tour of Alan M. Kent’s award-winning play, THE TIN VIOLIN. The true story of Guinean slave Joseph Emidy, who made his way from Africa to Cornwall in 1800 and became a famous violinist and composer. Alan M. Kent’s play is a thoughtful and moving exploration of creative and cultural identity in a world much larger than ours is today.  Winner of the 2009 ‘Hoyler An Gof’ award for best drama, the show also features live music from the People’s String Foundation of Cornwall and choreography by C-Scape Dance Company. A play rich with dialect, dance and decadence, THE TIN VIOLIN opens at the Minack Theatre, on 28 May, and tours until 4 August.

Born in Guinea, West Africa in 1775, at the height of European colonialism, Joseph ‘Josh’ Emidy was first captured as a slave by the Portuguese, then kidnapped by the British Navy, serving as a fiddler on The Indefatigable during the French wars. Landing at Falmouth, Cornwall and being presented with a magical tin violin made by an illiterate miner, Emidy became a musical genius of the early nineteenth century. A magical re-imagining of Joseph’s journey, from the oppression of slavery to encounters with mad sailors, the potty queen of Portugal and a chorus of Cornish fishwives, THE TIN VIOLIN is a thoughtful, moving and funny exploration of identity, creativity and belonging.

On the project, writer Alan M. Kent says:

"Emidy's story is one that I had been longing to write a play about. One of the figures now celebrated during Black History Month, parts of his life are well-recorded, but other periods are hidden. We have had to ensure a continuity from his berimbau-playing and Capoeira adventures in Brazil to his time in early nineteenth-century Cornwall. The real loss is that none of his compositions have survived – the story of which we tell in the drama."