Moby Dick, Mall Arts Centre, Youghal, Co Cork, Apr 1-2 8pm, €20/€15, 024-92926 followed by tour

"Nothing can be stated about Moby Dickexcept that it is a contest," wrote EM Forster. "The rest is song." Most people will know the contest: Ahab, the monomaniacal captain of a whaling ship, has already lost a leg to the great white whale and seems determined to let it have his mind too. The crew – a motley mixture of races and religions, with names that sound like coffee shop chains – are all drawn into the ruinous quest, including the conscientious narrator. Call him Ishmael.

Or better yet, call him Conor Lovett. This mesmerising actor has already navigated the choppy waters of Samuel Beckett’s prose for Gare St Lazare Players to astonishing theatrical effect. Now he and director Judy Hegarty Lovett have adapted one of the most gripping tales ever written and are taking it around the nation.

If that sounds like a novel idea, it isn’t. The single storyteller with an epic at his command is the oldest performance piece there is. Hear his song.

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