RANI Moorthy's one-woman show Pooja, which comes to the Everyman at Cheltenham next week is both multi-cultural and multi-media.

It also shows off the multitude of talents which have won acclaim for the show both in Britain and abroad.

Pooja combines storytelling, ritual, stand-up and video for a comic close-up of a woman who defies fate from day one.

Pooja means ritual or offering in Sanskrit. This semi-autobiographical comic drama was premiered at Green Room, Manchester, in 1999 and has also toured internationally to Malaysia (2002) and to Sri Lanka (2003) for the British Council.

Pooja tells the story of Ranjana and the impact of her horoscope. With her destiny pre-ordained by time of birth, she juggles century-old rituals that will deflect foretold ills with the forbidden pleasures of modern life. Marrying a banana tree at dawn and flirting in the disco at night, Ranjana obeys her family with hilarious consequences.

She plays 12 characters both on stage and in the video footage.