Greek myth is brought up to date as immersive theatre show set in Dido's Bar at Staggeringly Good Brewery in Portsmouth

Nightly, divine bar managers, Juno and Venus, welcome world-class artists onto their stage, and around their performances, the drama unfolds.

The work is inspired by director Josephine Burton’s encounter with Kurdish Iranian refugee and now Finnish resident, composer Marouf Majidi and is written by Hattie Naylor.

Art Reach, the producers of the annual Journeys Festival International (JFI), have teamed up with Dash Arts to bring an evening of theatre and live music together to the Staggeringly Good Brewery in Milton, Portsmouth, on October 22 and 23.

Josephine, artistic director of Dash says: ‘The ancient myth of Aeneas, a refugee from the war-torn East who travels across the Mediterranean to seek sanctuary and build a new home in Europe, is truly a tale for our time.

‘We are bringing it hurtling into the present – setting the drama in a music club on the edge of town, where the heroes of old are now the great music stars of today, with a little jazz and world music thrown in!’

Audiences can expect an evening of sumptuous music and electrifying storytelling as Dido’s Bar owners Juno and Venus invite you to hear their latest musical discoveries alongside regular favourites.

The actors and musicians will greet the audience and invite them to grab a drink from the bar and offer visas, places to stay and work as part of the interactive performance. All the drama within the production take place in and around the live audience in the bar.

Jon Chapman, co-owner of the brewery explains: ‘We’re so excited to host this at Staggeringly Good Brewery, it’s a perfect fit for our venue and we’re always keen to try new and interesting events at the brewery too.

‘The way the audience is surrounded by and is part of the performance will be amazing, it’s going to be a fantastic night out.’

This takes a new approach for the team behind JFI who have delivered a festival-style event in Portsmouth each year since 2016. Over the years the festival used live music at St Mary’s Church, huge outdoor art exhibitions, film nights, immersive events in galleries and a huge array of live performance to raise awareness of the migration crisis and offer a platform to artists of sanctuary-seeking backgrounds.

For tickets go to artreach.org.uk/journeys-festival.