IMMERSIVE PEAKY BLINDERS
I’ve been engulfed for the past ten months on dramaturging IMMERSIVE PEAKY BLINDERS here in Camden, north London. What fun!
This theatre piece is based on the gargantuanly successful BBC television series about a Birmingham gang’s rise to the top of the gangland empire. Set in 1920, our immersive theatre world brings audience cheek-by-jowl to characters they know intimately from six series of Steven Knight’s passionate, violent, early-twentieth-century illegal underworld.
My job has been to help the writer and director plot the world of the play. We spent months figuring out exactly where each character is at five-minute increments throughout the play’s 2.5 hour running time. I asked questions when things didn’t make sense and looked for places that needed clarification. The dramaturg acts as the audience’s eye – an outside observer and a sense checker – asking questions that reflect what is being made, so that the show can be the very best (and clearest!) version of itself
The production itself is in a former horse hospital in Camden Market which dates to the time the production is set.
Walking in to the venue, things feel immediately like a film set. Light, sound, smell and design all make up this world of 1920 London. The world is 360-degree complete; audiences can explore at will and drink at period-accurate bars. Packed with puzzles, escape-room like elements, and actors making constant offers of plot revelations to patrons, the production’s goal is to make an audience feel as if they are totally immersed within the world of the show.
With a company of 17 actors and an army of stage management, it is a massive undertaking. I joked with a Stage Manager that after this show she should land planes at Heathrow Airport, which would be an easier job! Each actor has their own individual track for the show, with their specific audience following them around. They may pick up more audience as the evening progresses. They need to be in specific places down to the exact second so that scenes in three spaces flow seamlessly. The crew of the production need to be in precise places to help actors quick change costume, pick up props and guns, or to guide an actor to their next entrance. This is just how traditional theatre works; yet in our world we have audience coming-and-going at will and actors moving around along with audiene in time and space. Not for the faint of heart!
Original television show creator Steven Knight and producer Caryn Mandabach have been on board with this project from its inception. It was a delightfully strange moment to tour the set with the two people who created this world and see it all reflected back to them.
The production is currently in previews and opens 13 July 2022