An outdoor experience featuring a sausage-shaped earth, a rickety lift to eternity, and a policeman falling in love with a bicycle will be coming to Falmouth on Thursday (20/7).

Miracle Theatre will be bringing its new show The Third Policeman to Gyllyngdune Gardens, ahead of several show dates in the Falmouth and Penryn area through August.

The show, based on the novel by Flann O'Brien, ventures into a world somewhere between Alice in Wonderland and Father Ted, with hilarious characters, streaks of dark humour and unforgettable plot twist, all in the heart of rural Ireland.

The story keeps veering off into an unsettling parallel universe where time has the habit of standing still, night is explained as an accretion of black air and people’s personalities merge with their bicycles as a result of the interchanging of atoms.

Miracle’s actors have become experts in presenting plays out of doors: they know how to make the most of all the fascinating and unlikely venues where they perform, how to tell stories in the most entertaining and compelling way and how to draw the audience into an exhilarating shared experience.

The production delights in O’Brien’s wonderful wit and luscious language and embraces its barmy world with lots of physical comedy and cranky music.

Bill Scott, Miracle's director, who adapted the novel for the stage, said: "The novel had cult status when I was at college, it was required reading not because it was on the syllabus but because all my friends were into it. I remember reading somewhere that the author Flann O’Brien had originally intended it to be a play. We got permission to adapt it in 1990 but didn’t take it any further then. Thirty years later, this 'comedy of such staggering originality that it baffles description' gets the Miracle treatment."

The Third Policeman gives Miracle the perfect opportunity to show off its talents: packed with wit and wordplay, physical buffoonery, moody music and a story that grips you right up to the final extraordinary twist, all the ingredients for an intoxicating cocktail of farce and philosophy.

Fans of this cult classic and newcomers alike should expect the unexpected.

As well as playing at Gyllyngdune on July 20, the company will be at Carn Marth on July 22, and will be running a showboat from Falmouth to its St Mawes performance on August 8 as part of Falmouth Week.

There are August performances at Trebah Amphitheatre, Roskilly's Farm on the Lizard, and at Enys Gardens near Penryn, as well as shows in Penzance and Truro.

For full listings and tickets go to miracletheatre.co.uk/tour-dates