HEADS Will Roll, a dark epic comedy about delusion, vanity, and the corruption of power, will be performed by Told by an Idiot at Brentor Village Hall on Saturday, November 19.

Inspired by the myth of El Dorado — the fantastical city where rivers ran with gold — Heads Will Roll explores the quests we carry throughout our lives, even if our goals are out of reach.

A golden man wades into a lake and disappears, searching for forgiveness. A BBC TV executive flushes money down the toilet in her desperate quest for soap opera ratings. A Spanish conquistador crashes through the jungle convinced he will find a city where rivers run with gold.

Heads Will Roll draws from a variety of sources including the extraordinary films of Herzog, the magic of Shakespeare’s late plays, and one particularly doomed BBC soap opera.

Featuring an international, all-female cast, the production premiered at Theatre Royal Plymouth in October before dates at Birmingham Rep, Liverpool Everyman and a rural tour connecting Told by an Idiot with audiences in small-scale venues and village halls across Devon and Dorset. The show can also be seen at Crediton Arts Centre on Thursday (November 17)

’I was excited by the potential of the myth of El Dorado and the elements of folly and failure this fateful quest entailed,’ said Paul Hunter, Told by an Idiot’s co-founder/artistic director and director of Heads Will Roll. ’It is proving particularly rewarding to work with an all-female company to explore such typically male themes of pride and hubris. We are thrilled to be taking the show on our first rural tour in recent years, to connect directly with audiences in such intimate settings, and to share our work with people that may not usually have the opportunity to see it.’

The show’s cast is Mercè Ribot and Patricia Rodriguez (who met on a Told by an Idiot workshop and went on to form Little Soldier, acclaimed for its recent production of Don Quixote), performer and composer Alicia Martel, one of Barcelona’s most unique musicians (who performed in Told by an Idiot’s Get Happy at the Barbican, 2015) and Colombian-born performer and choreographer Andrea Pelaez. Paul Hunter directs, assisted by puppetry consultant and assistant director Alumdena Adalia (founder of puppetry company Around the Glove). Design is by associate Idiot, Michael Vale.

Heads Will Roll is being produced in connection with the Theatre Royal Plymouth — the two co-produced My Perfect Mind, And the Horse You Rode in On and The Fahrenheit Twins.