A poet and storyteller who saw the community rally to save their last remaining pub is putting on a show in New Radnor to celebrate, and he’s lowering his fees to do so.

Andrew Brown is bringing his one-man show to New Radnor to celebrate the purchase of The Radnor Arms pub.

The pub was recently purchased by the community following a successful fundraising campaign and years of hard work.

The show, called The Moon Under Water, is based around – and named after – an essay by George Orwell, “a pessimistic soul”. It was to be Orwell’s last contribution to the Evening Standard, towards the end of his life, in which he describes his ideal pub at length – the fictitious and therefore perfect, Moon Under Water. He looks at what makes a pub, taking viewers on a colourful journey of pubs great and small, with ‘tales of booze’, history, philosophy, musings and poems.

Andrew told the Brecon and Radnor Express: “I heard about the New Radnor Community pub project and am very impressed, interested and excited by it. A pub is a tapestry on which the community can weave its story and so needs to be preserved and protected to keep that story going.”

Andrew has already taken the tour around the UK, celebrating the pubs he’s found.

“Before the pandemic, I was commissioned as part of an Arts Council England project to write and perform a show The Moon Under Water looking at what makes the perfect pub and what makes pubs perfect,” he explained.

“The show took George Orwell's essay of the same name as its starting point and examined (in a light-hearted way) whatever pub I was performing in through that lens. It was performed at approximately 60 (mostly rural) pubs across England before a run at the Edinburgh Fringe. The nearest I got to Wales was Aston on Clun.”

The event will be held at The Hub in New Radnor on Saturday, August 17 at 7pm, with tickets being £5.