Hannah Davies and Jack Woods: Performing The Ballad Of Blea Wyke at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, and Helmsley Arts Centre
NORTH Yorkshire slam champion poet, theatre maker and writer Hannah Davies and her regular musician, Jack Woods, re-imagine the selkie myth for a not-too-distant dystopian future on the North Yorkshire coast in The Ballad Of Blea Wyke.
Originally micro-commissioned by York Theatre Royal as part of the Green Shoots project in May 2022, the show has grown from its five-minute debut into a 60-minute performance, premiered at the Scarborough Fair in June 2025 and now heading for York and Helmsley.
Directed by Em Whitfield Brooks and presented in association with York arts organisations Say Owt and Next Door But One, this lyrical spoken-word and musical storytelling piece will be performed at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, on Friday (10/7/2026) at 8.30pm and Helmsley Arts Centre on July 17 at 7.30pm.
Chiming with her own move from York to Scarborough, Hannah relates the tale of a young woman who wants to see the sea, combining her storytelling with Pascallion and Leeather’O musician Jack’s live guitar, loops and harmonies in a haunting interweaving of story, music, poetry and song.
“I’ve spent the last few years living and working by the sea – I love it,” says Hannah. “The sound of the waves are like instant calming white noise for me. There is something both soothing and terrifying about the sea and I love the fact that it brazenly declares all of its moods without apology.”
What happens in The Ballad Of Blea Wyke? A stranger stands on a cliff. The last grey seal swims towards the shore. On her 18th birthday, Cerys breaks the city’s lockdown to seek the coastal cliffs that birthed her, the crumbling landscape drawing her back to her mythic past.
Explaining what drew her to the selkie myth of seals transforming into humans by shedding their skin, Say Owt associate artist and creative producer Hannah says: “I suffered from Topical Steroid Withdrawal between 2019 and 2023, a debilitating iatrogenic condition caused by steroids.
“I’d been through hell with that, as my skin burnt, swelled, scabbed and shed, so the image of the seal shedding its skin really resonated with me. A lot of the selkie myths are about transformation and coming back to one truest nature, and I really had to do that as I healed.”
Hannah read all manner of folk tales for research purposes: “Any I could get my hands on,” she says. “The People Of The Sea, a memoir by writer David Thomson, was really useful. In it he travels to rural Scotland and Ireland and meets all kinds of local people, who tell him a wide variety of the ancient Celtic versions of the stories.
“It was fascinating to learn so much about them and the variety of stories and forms they show up in. The selkie stories also cross over into Nordic and Norse folklore, so I read up about those too.”
Hannah continues: “I also ‘geeked out’ on plenty of nature documentaries, watching seals swimming, fighting, giving birth. 2014 film Song Of The Sea is a really lovely watch. I enjoyed that film immensely and also watched darker sea films like Lighthouse (2019) and Bait (2019), set and filmed in a Cornish fishing village.”
Blea Wyke, should you be unaware, is a rocky promontory very close to Ravenscar, between Scarborough and Whitby, where seals often can be spotted, especially during mating or pup season.
“Ravenscar was once planned as a new Victorian seaside town, which never actually got finished as the company went bust,” says Hannah. “There are hints of this in the landscape, laid pavements, drains etc. I was fascinated by this image of a half-finished ghost town and this informed the feel of lockdown and disaster in the piece and also the wider themes.”
Why is the coastline “forbidden” in The Ballad Of Blea Wyke, Hannah? “The piece is set in a contemporary re-imagining of the myth and places the events of the story in Yorkshire, in a time that suggests a post-climate collapse.
“The piece was very much influenced by the desolate feeling of lockdown and the restrictions around it and also by the type of world that we are living in, where every inch of the land is owned, privatised or restricted in some way.”
Assessing why storytelling remains so crucial to human existence, Hannah says: “Stories are embedded into us at the very core. We are all made up of our stories, and by telling and sharing them we get to see and understand ourselves in others’ actions, words and deeds.
“Humans need connection and shared experience to thrive and I think stories do that for us all. In such a divided world we need that more than ever.”
Out of curiosity, the last question has to be whether Hannah believes in the existence of selkies? “I believe in folk tales and the power they have to tell us about the lore of the land,” she says. “I definitely believe in magic.”
Hannah Davies and Jack Woods present The Ballad Of Blea Wyke, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Friday, 8.30pm, doors 7.30pm; Helmsley Arts Centre, July 17, 7.30pm. Box office: York, bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise; Helmsley, 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
More questions for Hannah Davies
How have you and Jack expanded the piece from the May 2022 micro-version at York Theatre Royal?
“After the original five-minute micro-commission as part of York Theatre Royal’s Green Shoots, Jack and I worked together to expand it into a full piece. I led on the story and Jack on the music, though both informed the other as it went on.
“I’d throw Jack bits of dialogue or description and he would share fragments of musical themes and together we built a shared sound and image world, which then became the final piece.
“We then worked with Next Door But One to host a first sharing read-through and this is when Em Whitfield Brooks came on board as directorial/vocal support. Having her expertise really helped me to refine all the different modes and tones of storytelling in the piece. There is poetry, narration, dialogue and song, all beautifully underscored by Jack’s rich, layered sounds.
Have further changes been made since last summer’s Scarborough Fair?
“A couple of tweaks in dialogue here and there, but not really, no. The show we did last year is now ready to tour and be shared more widely. It had been a slow burn making this show; it’s simmered and brewed over a few years and has been worked on between lots of other projects, which has made it a stronger piece I think.”
Where is your favourite place on the Yorkshire coastline and why?
“Ooooh, so many, too many to name! Probably Boggle Hole. My Dad used to take me and my brother there to stay in the youth hostel.”
How important is the support of Say Owt and Next Door But One?
“Working with Matt Harper-Hardcastle and NDB1 was so great. They really helped me and Jack get the piece turned into its finished form. Being associate artist at Say Owt is such a joy too.”
What will you be working on next?
“I’m in the process of reclaiming my writing and performance practice. I have lots of bits and bobs coming up.”
Hannah Davies
Writer/performer
HANNAH Davies is a writer, theatre-maker, director, performer and slam-winning poet from Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
She has written for Royal Court Theatre, Ice&Fire, York Theatre Royal and Guild of Misrule and performed at spoken-word nights across the UK.
She is an associate artist at York spoken-word collective Say Owt and has held such roles as co-leader of MA Playwriting course at University of York, artistic director of York company Common Ground Theatre and executive producer at ARCADE in Scarborough. Discover more at hannahdavies.co.uk
Musician/performer
JACK Woods is a Yorkshire musician and instrumentalist. He studied music at British and Irish Modern Music Institute and plays mandolin, violin and guitar. He has played in many bands across different genres, including Leather’O, and writes and records as Pascallion. He has featured on BBC Introducing with Jericho Keys. Visit pascallion.bandcamp.com
Director
EM Whitfield Brooks is a director, choral leader, creative facilitator, voice teacher and coach. She has directed large-scale community opera and small-scale touring theatre; produced and directed for Ryedale Festival Community Opera; was a choral director of Hull Freedom Chorus, Angus & Ross Theatre Company and Back to Ours in Hull and held the artistic director’s post at Helmsley Arts Centre from 2012 to 2016. Check out emwhitfieldbrooks.com.
PitchWitches
Did you know?
EM Whitfield Brooks’s new vocal quintet, Pitch Witches, will be the opening act at the Helmsley Arts Centre performance of The Ballad Of Blea Wyke. Em brings together some of the finest singers in York for a soaring set of close-harmony songs.
