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...]
MULAN ROUGE at The Vaults, London | Review
Nope - that’s not a spelling mistake. Mulan Rouge is a mash-up of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge and Disney’s Mulan. Expect plenty of outrageous dancing, big music numbers, cross-dressing and gender exploration. All the good stuff. When Mulan’s father receives a call-up to the International Forces Union, to defend against the approaching Hun, Mulan decides to go in his place, disguising herself as a man, and finds herself posted to Paris, in the Moulin Rouge nightclub. No, I don’t know why, … [Read more...]
ATHENA written by Gracie Gardner | Review
High school fencing as a setting for a play: I’ll be honest, I was sceptical. I was wrong. Athena is exhilarating theatre at its very best. Athena (Millicent Wong) - her ‘fencing name’; it adds to her mystique - has just beaten Mary Wallace (Grace Saif), acquiring her number fifty-four seeding, presumably in the New York Junior Women’s Épée League, and Mary Wallace isn’t taking it well. But brash, speak-her-mind Athena sees the opportunity, and invites her well-matched opponent to become her … [Read more...]
How to Survive an Apocalypse at Finborough Theatre | Review
Great acting and some zinging one-liners have me laughing out loud, but in the end, can’t save a script that doesn’t feel built on solid foundations. How to Survive an Apocalypse begins with editor Jen (Kristin Atherton) struggling with her lifestyle magazine about to fail. The board parachutes in alpha male consultant, Bruce (Ben Lamb) to save it. Instead, his presence reveals Jen’s doubts about her marriage to steady-but-feeble Tim (Noel Sullivan). Jen’s high school best friend, Abby … [Read more...]