WEAVING fact with fiction, local writer, director and actor Jonathan Brown tells the story of digging a 900ft well in Woodingdean.

It also relates Jack Tompkins’s search for the truth about his mother who died when he was a child – a search that uncovers corruption and lechery.

This production is a powerful example of physical theatre. The cast play not only the characters, but also the scenery and props on a bare stage in front of an edifice of scaffolding and ladders.

They achieve this with some spectacular imagery aided by creative lighting and haunting songs.

The audience is required to play its part by using their imagination and accepting that more than one person plays the same character.

A hardworking cast of six balance the requirements of acting skills and exhausting physical activity while the production is enhanced by two acapella singers whose songs underline and punctuate the action.

But there is a fault with the production; it is too long and verbose. Brown is overstretched and perhaps has failed to appreciate this. It needs a detached view to stop the pudding being over-egged.