Talk and illustrated evening in which mountaineer Simon Yates, co-climber in 'Touching the Void', shares his climbing journey with wit and humour.
Simon Yates is coming to Taliesin Arts Centre on Tuesday 8 December, for a talk and poetry evening about his life as a mountaineer. If you've ever heard of Touching the Void, you'll know the name. He's one of the most accomplished exploratory climbers of his generation, and he's the one who lived through the story that made him a household name.
That story goes back to 1985, on the remote Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Yates was climbing with Joe Simpson, who took a fall and ended up dangling fifty metres below him, badly injured. To save both their lives, Yates had to cut the rope. It's the central, harrowing moment of Simpson's bestseller Touching the Void, which later became a film and a stage play. It's the kind of thing that stays with you long after you've finished the book, and it's the story Yates tells here, first-hand.
But that's not all he's about. More than 35 years on, he's still a very active exploratory climber and guide, leading several expeditions every year to ranges from the Arctic and Antarctic to Alaska and Central Asia. The evening is as much about where he's been since the Andes as it is about that one climb. He tells the story with wit and dry humour, and it's lavishly illustrated with images and film from his climbs, so you'll see the places he's talking about as he goes. It's been acclaimed by regular theatre-goers and outdoor enthusiasts alike, which tells you it works whether you've ever put on a pair of boots or not.
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It starts at 7:30pm at Taliesin Arts Centre, on Swansea University's Singleton Campus (SA2 8PZ). Tickets are £23 full price, with under-26s and students getting it for £21.
