Last night I went to immersive theatre in London. It's a 30 second walk from where I live and everyone in the world ever has been talking about how amazing this show is. So after 2 years of trying to find the time, I paid the eye wateringly expensive (London) ticket price and off I went, to be immersed.
Friends, it was my worst nightmare and I hated it. 🤣
I can see why people enjoy it. You enter a huge warehouse that's fashioned to look like an antiquities gallery with a menacing voice over a tannoy saying something about how Ancient Gods were all high on acid and killing people. That's what I heard anyway. Then, the "audience" were told to put on incredibly sinister white faceless masks and aimlessly walk around a dystopian city set based (apparently) on Greek tragedies.
The set itself was a sprawling, cavernous maze of abandoned shops, arcades, side streets, houses and restaurants to explore. It was ART ™️ so there were actors dotted around doing scenes about something to do with...oh I don't know, death and betrayal but dressed like extras from Mad Max. There wasn't really any dialogue, mainly just semi naked performers writhing around being dead and sad.
You're instructed to work out the plot yourself. "You came here to be lost" the opening actor told us, which we can all agree is f*cking tedious but I gave it a go.
I entered the space frankly terrified (I have had nightmares about cuter looking masks) but the vivid imagination that meant I screamed a bit when my friend tapped me on the shoulder also meant I could invent a plot, surely?! At one point I got lost down a "market" side street. Nobody else was there and I was reminding myself that I was at FUN theatre for Londoners with too much disposable income and not actually lost outside a decaying Agamemnon’s palace, about to be writhing around being dead and sad. The set was good though, so I spent nearly all of it on the brink of a panic attack.
At one point, a bothersome actor followed me with a torch and I thought...not for me, this. So then I spent 20 minutes trying to find the exit, eventually asking Helena of Troy's cousin. Honestly, the whole thing to me just felt like trying to get out of a particularly dark Debenhams before closing time.
And I left thinking that was...bad. The space was incredible, my palms were still sweaty from feeling completely like I was in a decaying city...but there was no substance. No soul. No narrative. No story. And when we don't give people a story, something to anchor into to put themselves into the experience, we're left feeling a bit lost and a bit bored. Classic style over substance.
And this is the same for immersive theatre as it is presenting a pitch.
Stories matter, in business as much as in life. Too much style and you get a beautiful warehouse and a man with a torch. Too much substance and you get a slide deck nobody remembers.
The line between interesting information and a compelling story is a fine one, and finding it is the thing I am actually good at. Want to get better at telling them? Book me.
Thank you! Also, if you know the show and loved it, I think you are awesome and braver than me and it is fun to disagree about things.
Have a fantastic HERCULEAN weekend. I love having you around.
Kirsty x
