Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC

Sounds.

Hello and welcome to the Witness Podcast with me Louise Adaggo.

Today I'm taking you back to December 1972 and a three-month journey across the Sahara Desert

by the legendary theatre director Peter Brooke with the troop of actors that would go down in theatrical history.

I've been talking to author and drama critics. that would go down in theatrical history.

I've been talking to author and drama critic John Heilpern, who went with them.

You're in a desert, there's nothing there.

There's only the imagination.

The imagination

the imagination the imagination,

long lived the imagination,

as Brooks catchphrase.

Peter Brooke was already known as one of the greatest most innovative theatre directors of the age.

His production of Shakespeare's

a midsummer night's dream in 1970 had revolutionized theatre.

The next year, Peter Brook left for Paris, where he set up a theatre that he still runs today

...