Voidspace 2025 is a yearly immersive arts weekender run by Katy Joyce Naylor. There’s shows, and installations, and work in progress, and space to chat.
I was not the best of attendees. I only got to half of it, only went to two shows, and spent the rest of the time talking to anyone who left a chair free at their table in the bar. So I largely magpied other folk’s experience of what they do: absurdist immersive clownery, computational art, participatory community performance, immersive theatre and educational escape rooms are the fields I remember. (Hazel Dixon had the coolest PhD ever.)
Met a couple of folk from Shunt, a company I’d shamefully not heard of before. Now I’m wishing I’d left London a year or so later – because their work at London Bridge sounded just amazing. One of them is now at Phantom Peak, which I am reminded I really should get to, the other has just finished a run of Hedda Gabler. Fascinating people.
Caught myself thinking “Oh, I recognise you…” any number of times; mostly for performers I usually see in UCN jumpsuits at Bridge Command, and really should have made time for a chat, but I was on my way home. (Beth, for example.)
Always a pleasure to check in with Rebel Rebhinder about what Omen Star are planning. They’d done an in-person run of Meet at the Tavern, which I missed. The inline version was one of the series which kept me going during lockdown. Folk walking past were congratulating her on it, so running for an audience with mixed experience of larp seemed to have gone pretty well.
Had an excellent chat with Emily Carding, the doyen of immersive acting, about terminology. (They’re in Key of Dreams too, and worked at Bridge Command as well as their own stuff.) We danced on the pin of defining immersive and interactive for a bit. If folk would just use words to mean exactly what I mean by them, life would be so much simpler. As they don’t, I have to rely on hope to get what I want in a show. Their word was “responsive”, which is what I mean when I say “interactive, and not rubbish”. Not just “the audience can take an action”, but “the audience’s actions affect the narrative.” For them, if I got this right – an interaction is literally pointless unless it has an impact, and then the show is responsive, not just interactive. I think.
Now, I’ve been to larps like this, when your interactions didn’t impact the overall narrative, and enjoyed them when I understood ahead of time what I was getting. And I’ve definitely been to immersive experiences when your interactions don’t materially affect anything, and loved them. (Secret Cinema’s Guardians of the Galaxy being a prime example. Loads of interaction, doesn’t affect the narrative one jot.) I do like a bit of agency though – which I think is the term larp uses for what players have when the event is what she’d call responsive.
The description of Punchdrunks work as “voyeuristic promenade theatre” is going to stick with me…
However you label it, Emily’s stuff is what I want. Intense, compelling, and participatory. You truly feel like they are giving the show with you, not just to you.
They took their Richard III last Voidspace, and iirc the participation was simply “You had a name badge if you were a character.” I enjoyed being Richard Grey and having their Richard inform me of my death.
This year, I saw their Hamlet, which extended that a little, by inviting audience participants to join them in performance. A half dozen of so folk got fragments of scenes – some just the one, some a few more. Laertes had a nice run – and a brief fight scene. IYKYK. Really neat was the conclusion – the last speech was by an audience member after the sweet prince had shuffled off the mortal coil. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the play before, so I had no idea how many phrases I parrot a lot were taken from it. Or that Shakespeare used ‘trippingly off the tongue’ here as well as in Midsummer Night’s dream.
I’d specifically gone to see Ali Anderson-Dyer of Bunbury Banter in a development run of their Secrets of Barrenbrook.
Welcome to Barrenbrook. A town of whispers, a past steeped in mystery, and a future shaped by you.
Neither theatre nor game, yet something of both, Barrenbrook blends interactive storytelling with social deduction, no two performances are ever the same.
Deception lingers in the air, alliances shift, and the truth is unclear.
A gathering of strangers becomes a community, where some will watch and listen, while others step forward to guide the town’s fate.
The lanterns are lit. The stage is set. Bring your friends, your curiosity, and maybe a little caution, for an experience you’ll want to share.
It’s the game Werewolf, made into a storytelling session. She foreshadows what she’ll be asking the players to do really gently, so it’s not such a surprise for them when they step up to join the village, and she asks each one their name in game, their job in the village and their magical power. Nicely done – she draws folk into what becomes a story as well as a series of The Traitors in miniature really beautifully.
Next year, I am going to see more shows. “Oh, did you see this?” was such a common refrain, so I am absolutely sure there was gold I missed.
LARP experience 
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