Tag Archives: Katie Lyons

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“STOREHOUSE” at Deptford Storehouse

Secrecy can be exciting, and this project from new arts production company Sage & Jester uses that fact well. “Truth lies here” is the smart tagline, immersive theatre is the promise and, given how diverse that scene is, what you are going to get is hard to anticipate. That the show is big is obvious enough – the former paper depot that serves as the venue is 9,000 square metres.

Without giving too much away, there’s a sci-fi scenario that the audience is guided through a little too strictly. The story isn’t complicated – all the world’s digital information, since the internet started in 1983, has been secretly stored in this very location – but it is hampered by a lot of jargon. The scientists who founded the project (at the height of post-modernism, no less) were aiming for an ultimate truth via algorithm. A mission that has, not surprisingly, failed.

The show’s founder and concept creator, Liana Patarkatsishvili, has the laudable aim of provoking us into thinking about information and control. But the issues aren’t new and it’s all a bit worthy. We learn that online media is often biased and that it brings out the worst in people. Hopefully, that isn’t a revelation to many. Exploring the cultish overtones to a faith in the algorithm is more interesting but comes with yet more cant.

STOREHOUSE-Nina-Smith-credit-to-Helen-Murray
Nina Smith

While those founders are voiced by an impressive cast in recordings, it is the bookbinders, stackers and caretakers (each with an oath) that we meet. These characters are a touch too bizarre. And attempts at humour fail. But Nat Kennedy, Zachary Pang and Nina Smith, who I saw perform, dealt very well with the audience participation, which is encouraged but isn’t heavy handed – the cast won’t bother you if you aren’t keen (guilty). The questions are rather elevated, or at least abstract, which gives the show some standout.

There was a ‘Writers’ room’ at work here. And while there is lots of talent credited (Tristan Bernays, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Kathryn Bond, Katie Lyons, Caro Murphy and Rhik Samadder, with the story “produced” by Donnacadh O’Briain) the result is disappointing. The vocabulary is, frankly, naff and the dialogue clunky, partly because of too many slogans. Yes, we are meant to question all these mantras. But that doesn’t make them any easier to listen to. A bigger problem is that we don’t get to know our guides. They have a back story, but not enough time is taken over it, so there is no emotional connection.

There’s a twist when it comes to the end, with a nod to conspiracy theories that might surprise. After all, when it comes to “shaping narratives”, theatre makers are experts! It’s never a bad thing check how gullible you might be. I’m just not sure that insight is commensurate with the effort here.

Thankfully, there can be no reservations about the set itself – that is impressive. Production designer Alice Helps’ work is big and beautiful. It’s clever not to lean too far into scary, and the details, including the smells, tick the immersive box. The lighting from Ben Donoghue and the sound design from James Bulley are both suitably ethereal. For the finale, there’s a great touch incorporating the crowd, as well as music by Anna Meredith and more abstracts, as we are asked about the future and what gives us hope. This final scene might even give you goosebumps, though that’s mainly down to the staging and set.

Until 20 September 2025

www.sageandjester.com/storehouse/

Photos by Helen Murray

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“Above and Beyond”at the Corinthia Hotel

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Although it’s a tough job, theatre critics should aim for some semblance of objectivity when they write. That makes Above and Beyond, currently playing at the Corinthia Hotel, difficult to deal with. Billed as “one-on-one immersive theatre” the thrill is that each audience member can make of it what he or she wills. Participation, which many, including reviewers, dread, plays a big part. It’s an exciting adventure, best commended by saying that at the end it’s something you’ll want everyone to do.

When it comes to the ‘doing’, Above and Beyond is a tremendous achievement on the part of its cast and apparently super-human director Mimi Poskitt. After being escorted to the starting point in the lobby, you launch on a solo journey in and outside the hotel, up and downstairs, meeting all kind of characters. Of course your every move is plotted to perfection and the mechanics of the operation are almost distractingly smooth – you can’t help looking out for other participants and maybe start to feel a little paranoid that everyone you see is a member of the cast. The plethora of details is delightful and the execution faultless. And give yourself some credit – interacting with the cast like this, no matter how skilfully encouraged, is unusual and engrossing.

Such is the level of complicity established, I confess my allegiances lie with the team behind the show, the Corinthia’s ‘Artists in Residence’, Look Left Look Right. There’s a charge from the unexpected that they utilise so any plot spoilers would be unfair to this hard working crew. Suffice to say, don’t expect a narrative as such, rather of collection of stories, written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Katie Lyons, inspired by the hotel, its staff and the international elite who stay in a place like this.

The scenes designed to provoke sentiment and nostalgia, with a nod to the location’s history, worked less well – for me anyway – but the majority of Above and Beyond has a sense of fun, a welcome change from much theatre in this format, and an intelligent wit that recognizes the bizarre situations. This is one of the funniest nights I’ve had in ages – I couldn’t stop laughing in several scenes. And a couple of teasers: expect a real giggle in the spa and check your face for make-up before you leave.

Lloyd Malcolm and Lyons have an impressive sense of independence despite the overwhelming generosity of the hotel. Going behind the scenes could prove awkward and a marketing seminar you are invited to join is close-to-the-bone funny. But the Corinthia is its own advertisement, with interiors gorgeous enough to awe a humble theatre critic and a penthouse suite I felt privileged to visit. The real members of the hotel staff deserve credit as well since the experiment must make more work for them. Let’s hope they get a chance to experience some of the magic themselves.

Until 14 April 2013

Written 20 March 2013 for The London Magazine