Expect the unexpected
What I Saw.
Experimental theatre is not for the faint hearted, especially when you haven't the slightest idea what the evening entails, and even more so when you are given a list of instructions and warnings beforehand.
We were told:
You must be able to walk up and down several sets of stairs.
There will be dark spaces and uneven surfaces - please wear suitable footwear.
Please tell a member of staff if you suffer from claustrophobia.
There will be no toilet facilities for the duration of the performance.
There will be no seating.
There will be flashing lights.
And finally... You must be prepared for full male and female nudity.
That's my sort of theatre!
All we knew was that it took place in some disused tunnels and abandoned offices below Somerset House in London, a beautiful neo-classical building built in 1775. It was described as a promenade performance where you walk through at your own pace, discovering installations, film, art and theatre. Nothing at all about what it was about!
I invited 5 friends, thank god, because on reflection it could have been quite terrifying. Safety in numbers. The six of us sat in excitable apprehension, giggling nervously until our group was led across a courtyard and down a damp staircase, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the building, by a silent non-smiling woman, dressed in black.
We were put in a conference room with a live TV feed showing an argument between an angry man and two others. We were then joined by a suited businesswoman who read figures aloud from an annual report, then apologised for being in the wrong room and left. She was replaced by the angry man from the other room, who began shouting a speech as he stared at each of us. It was quite unnerving... I began to take my coat off but then chaos ensued. Alarms went off, people in lab coats panicked and pushed us through rooms of flashing equipment and then suddenly they were gone and we were left to explore the dark corridors on our own.
There were rooms filled with old computers; mathematical equations written floor to ceiling on blackboards; mad scientists doing experiments on fruit, speaking a mixture of languages (some people in another group, smiling smugly as they recognised smatterings of German, Spanish and Italian); nervous technicians introduced us to a pet robot (the Petbot) and a speaking computer, both malfunctioning during the demonstrations... the general feeling was of impending doom. There were small rooms off larger rooms showing films or filled with dozens of TV's. There was a 30 foot giant robot. We came to another room where office workers typed replies to complaint letters about robots disobeying orders, of them biting children and misbehaving. There was an irritable red-faced supervisor striding around the room reprimanding them, until one girl shouted back, yelling with pure joy and grinning as she took all her clothes off. Then the others began to strip off until we found ourselves surrounded by 8 or so naked people. Some of us didn't know where to look, some of us did! The nude people walked down a long corridor and up a grand spiral staircase, then stared down at us as we stared back. Other people in suits, fell in slow motion past the windows (physically being lowered on wires in the freezing cold outside) and some put on scuba equipment as rooms filled with water. We walked through a long dark hallway filled with beautiful light-boxes and then another that was a lemon grove.
And that was it... Utterly bizarre but highly entertaining. It was funny, it was clever, it was thought provoking. I have never been to anything like it, and probably never will again. In the space of an hour, for only £25, we got to explore the guts of one of London's most beautiful buildings, and on top of that we had science, drama, mystery, comedy, art, film, acrobatics, adventure and lots and lots of naked people. You can't even get that on a night out in Soho!
And finally... You must be prepared for full male and female nudity.
That's my sort of theatre!
All we knew was that it took place in some disused tunnels and abandoned offices below Somerset House in London, a beautiful neo-classical building built in 1775. It was described as a promenade performance where you walk through at your own pace, discovering installations, film, art and theatre. Nothing at all about what it was about!
I invited 5 friends, thank god, because on reflection it could have been quite terrifying. Safety in numbers. The six of us sat in excitable apprehension, giggling nervously until our group was led across a courtyard and down a damp staircase, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the building, by a silent non-smiling woman, dressed in black.
We were put in a conference room with a live TV feed showing an argument between an angry man and two others. We were then joined by a suited businesswoman who read figures aloud from an annual report, then apologised for being in the wrong room and left. She was replaced by the angry man from the other room, who began shouting a speech as he stared at each of us. It was quite unnerving... I began to take my coat off but then chaos ensued. Alarms went off, people in lab coats panicked and pushed us through rooms of flashing equipment and then suddenly they were gone and we were left to explore the dark corridors on our own.
There were rooms filled with old computers; mathematical equations written floor to ceiling on blackboards; mad scientists doing experiments on fruit, speaking a mixture of languages (some people in another group, smiling smugly as they recognised smatterings of German, Spanish and Italian); nervous technicians introduced us to a pet robot (the Petbot) and a speaking computer, both malfunctioning during the demonstrations... the general feeling was of impending doom. There were small rooms off larger rooms showing films or filled with dozens of TV's. There was a 30 foot giant robot. We came to another room where office workers typed replies to complaint letters about robots disobeying orders, of them biting children and misbehaving. There was an irritable red-faced supervisor striding around the room reprimanding them, until one girl shouted back, yelling with pure joy and grinning as she took all her clothes off. Then the others began to strip off until we found ourselves surrounded by 8 or so naked people. Some of us didn't know where to look, some of us did! The nude people walked down a long corridor and up a grand spiral staircase, then stared down at us as we stared back. Other people in suits, fell in slow motion past the windows (physically being lowered on wires in the freezing cold outside) and some put on scuba equipment as rooms filled with water. We walked through a long dark hallway filled with beautiful light-boxes and then another that was a lemon grove.
And that was it... Utterly bizarre but highly entertaining. It was funny, it was clever, it was thought provoking. I have never been to anything like it, and probably never will again. In the space of an hour, for only £25, we got to explore the guts of one of London's most beautiful buildings, and on top of that we had science, drama, mystery, comedy, art, film, acrobatics, adventure and lots and lots of naked people. You can't even get that on a night out in Soho!
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