The invisible director

……’Guided by a mysterious unseen director you and dozens of others move together through the city following cues, reacting to strangers and becoming part of a living performance that unfolds in real time’……

 I’m sure you’ll agree it all sounds very Intriguing but I must admit I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this experience.

A few hours prior to the show we are sent a text with the location of a meeting point on the Southbank, when I arrive a group of slightly uncertain people are already gathered there, ‘Is this the Invisible director?’ I ask, they all nod. ‘Does anyone know what we’re meant to be doing? There is a general shaking of heads.

However, having been put into this slightly awkward situation forces us to start chatting and making introductions ‘How did we all end up here?’ Some people are friends of the creators Jack and Kate, some like myself were invited via Instagram and others just saw it online and thought it looked cool.

While we are getting to know each other, we receive a second message from our unseen hosts asking us to take a selfie and send it to them along with our names. This is when things got a little bit messy,  because as I’m sure you can imagine even in a relatively small group people take selfies at different rates and so  it meant people some received the next set of instructions way ahead of others, also the next message contained a link which some people had difficulty opening, the link contained an audio track and quite a few people like myself and my plus one had forgotten to bring headphones. (Even though we had been instructed to) We were still able to participate by holding our phones to our ears but it meant the experience was less immersive that it might otherwise have been.

Fortunately, one of the guys in the group appointed himself leader and eventually got us all moving in the same direction although I couldn’t help feeling it would have been much smoother if we’d just been given head sets and had a designated sheep dog from the outset.

During the course of the event we take a stroll along London’s vibrant South Bank, and along the way receive instructions to perform various tasks and challenges. (Sometimes in pairs in sometimes as a group and occasionally interacting with random members of the public.) The vibe is fun and silly; getting you to do thing you wouldn’t other wise do but without ever pushing you too far out of your comfort zone.

From my point of view however the real beauty of this event is that having spent 30 minutes engaging in all these weird and wonderful activities it completely breaks down the barriers with your fellow participants. When the event was over we unanimously headed to the nearest bar for a drink and to compare notes about what we had just taken part in, and so my evening with the Invisible Director concluded with the delightful and all too rare experience of standing around chatting to 12 people all of whom were complete strangers an hour ago!

I think everyone who attended would agree that the Invisible director is an idea with huge potential: It would great for a singles event, a team building exercise, you could even start a cult with it – the possibilities are endless! But I don’t think what we experienced tonight was a finished product, there definitely some screws that needed tightening both in terms of delivery and content. Nonetheless I feel privileged to have to been invited along to this, I imagine this is something like what it must have felt like to have been at the very first ‘Punchdrunk’ or ‘You me bum bum train’ and I very much look forward to being able to tell people ‘I saw this way back when’….

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-invisible-director-a-secret-immersive-audio-experience-in-london-tickets-1841508945829