Past the Shallows takes a skeleton crew into the deep water

Nick Annas makes his professional theatre debut in 'Past the Shallows' adapted from Favel Parrett's 2011 novel. Picture by Jesse Hunniford

There is something primal in the deep water, something engulfing and expansive in an uninterrupted horizon over an unfathomable deep.

A couple of years ago, I was taken onboard a catamaran past the Tomaree Heads on a gloomy and grey day. There was a point, after passing a solitary lighthouse on a spit of land that stretched out into the water, when we left the modern world - the one we built - behind to be swallowed into the primitive.