Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia is a joyful whirl through a psychedelic Mexico, which reminds us why live theatre is so special. Anyone who goes to the theatre will wonder at some point why they bother. No, not the audience - the performers. Why rehearse for weeks a play, opera, ballet, circus production, so that you can perform the same thing night after night? We have film these days, to capture the show and allow anyone and everyone to watch it whenever and wherever they want. And yet still … [Read more...]
Lost Origin is an immersive show with a mixed-reality twist
Lost Origin is an immersive show with a mixed-reality twist. It is a collaboration of immersive arts/museums' content creator Factory 42, The Almeida Theatre, Sky, the UK Research and Innovation Group, and the University of Exeter. Pre-pandemic, it began as an exploration of what the future of performance might be. After Covid hit, it pivoted to the form in which it can be seen today. Unfortunately, this complicated history and multi-party collaboration shows. As a technology demonstration it … [Read more...]
The Drop by Swamp Motel – Immersive Show
The Drop is a fully participatory immersive show, which puts you and up to three friends into the centre of a thrilling ride. We arrive at our appointment with our wealth managers. I haven’t realised any of my group are fabulously rich, but you have to roll with the punches. We sign in at reception, and are directed to a meeting room on the third floor. ‘Elevators are just around the corner,’ we are told. Someone has left their briefcase in the lift… With a successful trilogy of online … [Read more...]
The Battersea Poltergeist – Live at Clapham Grand
The Battersea Poltergeist - Live is an attempt to bring the hit podcast phenomenon to the stage. It’s an interesting experiment, but offered little for someone who hasn’t listened to the podcast (perhaps a quarter to a third of the audience by a show of hands) and thin additional pickings for anyone who has. Over lockdown, the podcast became a sleeper hit. Not just in the UK, but around the world, people were disappearing into their headphones, back to 1950s-1960s South London. The … [Read more...]
Echoes: An Immersive Horror Experience by COLAB Theatre
Reverend Parks welcomes us to the abandoned Sanderson chocolate factory for Echoes: An Immersive Horror Experience by COLAB Theatre. She’s grateful we’re here, because we have a job to do. Unnatural events demand an exorcism. Inside, we’re assigned to tables, and soon we’re piecing together information from newspapers, police reports, local history, to understand the events which might have led to the place being haunted. We’re searching for clues, though we’re not sure exactly what we’re … [Read more...]