The man entrusted with the task of bringing Moby Dick back to Fishguard and Goodwick reckons the return of Herman Melville’s great white whale will be an event to remember.

Bill Hamblett, director of Cardigan’s Small World Theatre, will head a giant lantern parade through Fishguard and Goodwick on Friday, September 25 – the centrepiece of which will be a convincing replica of the nemesis of Captain’s Ahab’s ship the Pequod.

“Moby Dick will be made out of recyclable materials and will be about 27 per cent the size of a real life sperm whale,” Bill revealed this week.

“Just as John Huston encountered numerous challenges in bringing Moby Dick to the big screen, we also have a few hurdles to overcome.

“Yet everything is coming together and I’m confident we can do justice to what will obviously be a very special occasion.”

Prior to that Bill will be revealing his own unique link to Melville’s legendary literary creation in a talk for Ein Hanes at Theatr Gwaun on Wednesday, September 9.

He was a near-neighbour of leading man Gregory Peck in California during the late 1950s and his father, Charles Hamblett, one of a team of Hollywood screenwriters who worked on the movie.

Hamblett senior’s memories of the 1954 Moby Dick shoot off Fishguard inspired his surreal fantasy novel The Crazy Kill in which leading man Peck is given the name ‘Gregory Pinch’ and Huston termed ‘John Simpson’.

“The Crazy Kill is essentially a pastiche of Moby Dick written in the slang of the 1950s,” says Bill.

The Pequod at her moorings.
The Pequod at her moorings. (Mike Lewis)

“But its insight into Huston and Peck is absolutely spot-on and the book provides a remarkable snapshot on how Hollywood came to west Wales to make a film about a whale in the middle of the ocean.”

Next month’s talk will also enable Bill to chart his colourful family background – stories involving John Lennon and Yoko Ono, JFK and Marilyn and the CIA’s secret experiments into the effects of LSD.

*John Huston Knew My Father: Moby Dick And Other Fishy Tales takes place at Theatr Gwaun at 6pm on Wednesday, September 9 (doors open 5.30pm).

Tickets, priced at £6 (£3 children) can be obtained at theatrgwaun.com or at [email protected]

*See onlandsedge.co.uk for further info.