A NEW play about Captain Cook, Pacific, is staged at Middlesbrough theatre this month by one of a young Welsh company, Theatr Y Byd.

It was written by the award-winning Welsh playwright, Ian Rowlands, based on a journal kept by the Welsh surgeon, David Samwell, who accompanied Capt Cook on his ill-fated final voyage on the Discovery.

It contains the gripping and often crude account of how the explorer met his death.

Rowlands first came across the journal in the National Library of Wales about ten years ago, and the idea for the play began to germinate. In 99, he was commissioned to write a new play for the national Eisteddfod 2000, and Pacific began to take shape in his mind.

The action takes place in the hours before Samwell's opium and drink-induced death, as he assesses Cook, the man and the myth, and is told as a dramatic monologue.

Samwell will be played by Richard Elfyn, an acclaimed Welsh actor who works regularly on stage, film and television.

"It feels a bit like taking coals to Newcastle," said Mr Rowlands, " but I am particularly excited by the prospect of Pacific playing in Cook's birthplace.

"People have their own ideas about who Cook was, what he stood for, and what he achieved. It's going to be fascinating when the play bounces back upon other people's ideas."

The show is on Thursday, March 22, at 7.30. Tickets are £7, £5.50 concessions, and can be booked from the box office on 01642 815181.