Directed by Improbable associate artist Lucy Foster, this devised show is a sort of swashbuckling storytelling presentation-cum-feminist self-help seminar. In it, co-devisors Chloé Déchery, Lucinka Eisler and Simone Kenyon each adopt a real historical female pirate as role model in an effort to help the three thirtysomethings reconnect with their 'inner pirate'.
It is a fun, fourth-wall-defying performance, in which piracy is used as cheery shorthand for independence and courage (not murder and pillage), something underlined by interspersed video interviews with elderly women offering non-nonsense advice on how to live life one's own way.
With an ocean of lurid historical fact for the performers to recount and speculate upon, 'The Pirate Project' is both a gleeful romp through the high times on the high seas enjoyed by Anne Bonny, Mary Read and Ching Shih and a pep talk on the importance of holding on to the self-possession of youth as middle age beckons.
It is not hugely original in form or content, but its unpretentious DIY chutzpah is thoroughly infectious.