Now in its sixth year, From Devon With Love is Villages in Action's rural scratch programme: a travelling evening with no fixed home, built on one simple idea. Artists share new work before it's finished, and audiences are invited into that process, not just to watch, but to help shape what happens to it next.
This September marks the first year of partnering with Gateway Theatre. The evening unfolds in two halves.
First up is a series of short vignettes spanning theatre, music and dance: new artists, early ideas, performed live for the very first time.
These bitesize performances invite audiences into a variety of vivid, intimate worlds. The Missing Note is a Teatro de Lambe or Latin American micro‑puppetry piece tenderly tracing grief, bereavement and new beginnings for a single viewer at a time. Annie Marches On takes us on a journey through time charting the ups and downs of the female fight for equality, centred around the true story of Sidmouth suffragist Annie Leigh Browne. Windchimes is a sharp, fast‑paced tale of a vulnerable son reconnecting with life after a suicide attempt, while The Devil's Picturebook provides a rich blend of folk tale and memoir where devils, princes and fathers wager not just gold, but trust, time and family.
The second half belongs to one Devon company, with a longer piece that's had more time to grow and develop. Humans in the Loop is a fast, playful, intensely human new musical which whisks the audience from New York to Mumbai via a Mid Devon farmhouse, with four very different characters pondering questions about life amidst a digital revolution.
Expect to see something you've never seen before.
Come curious. Leave inspired.
