A gold rush, a group of genocidal Indian hunters foiled by commando nuns, a runaway revolutionary archduke and Darwin and Queen Victoria playing imperial monopoly… D.W. Griffith meets Cecil B. DeMille – and all the time, the lights are going down over Europe.

In a dance hall in the spring before the First World War, a socialist visionary is shooting a silent film adapted from a Jules Verne adventure, using cooks and waiters as his cast. Long before the ship the Fol Espoir runs aground on Cape Horn, high idealism and base motives are vying for the souls of all on board.

Ariane Mnouchkine’s work has rarely been seen in the UK because of its sheer scale and complexity. Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir (Aurores) transforms the Lowland Hall into a spectacular world of the imagination and fantasy.