A DARK comedy about delusion, vanity, and the corruption of power will be on tour in Dorset next month.

Heads Will Roll is inspired by the myth of El Dorado - the fantastical city where rivers ran with gold - and explores the quests we carry throughout our lives, even if our goals are out of reach.

A golden man wades into a lake and disappears, searching for forgiveness.

A BBC TV executive flushes money down the toilet in her desperate quest for soap opera ratings.

A Spanish conquistador crashes through the jungle convinced he will find a city where rivers run with gold.

Heads Will Roll draws from a variety of sources including the extraordinary films of Herzog, the magic of Shakespeare’s late plays, and one particularly doomed BBC soap opera.

Featuring an international, all-female cast, the production premieres at Theatre Royal Plymouth before dates at Birmingham Rep, Liverpool Everyman, and a rural tour connecting Told by an Idiot with audiences in small-scale venues and village halls across Devon and Dorset.

Director Paul Hunter said: “I was excited by the potential of the myth of El Dorado and the elements of folly and failure this fateful quest entailed.

“It is proving particularly rewarding to work with an all-female company to explore such typically male themes of pride and hubris.