Cornwall-based theatre company Kneehigh has released the Walk With Me app to allow visitors to its home county to be immersed in stories collected from local people during its Rambles project led by writer Anna Maria Murphy.
The free app allows users to hear stories collected from all over Cornwall either in the comfort of their own homes or triggered by their GPS locations while in the county.
For the Rambles programme, Murphy walked around the county collecting stories and memories of people she met, which have been shaped into dramatic dialogues and performed by Kneehigh company members.
Murphy said, "the stories on the Walk with Me app, aren’t ones you will find in the guide or history books. You may find the beginnings of them in an old photograph in a local museum, an overheard conversation in a café, a personal anecdote from one of our tale-gathering tea-parties. They are the untold, the personal, the sometimes wildly exaggerated, but sometimes not."
Charlotte Bond, General Manager of Kneehigh and Director of Rambles, said, "you can use the app when you are out on a walk to hear stories collected in the particular place you are visiting. Local legends, gossip, it’s like walking with local storytellers. It uses GPS so when you reach a particular place you’ll hear a particular story. It’s a great new way to explore familiar and unfamiliar towns and villages across Cornwall or to revisit ones you think you know."
Walk With Me is available for iOS from the App Store and Android from Google Play features story walks for Perranporth, Mevagissey and Newquay with new walks to be released for Helston, Redruth and Bodmin.