Drayton Arms Theatre, 17th February 2025

It has been nearly a decade since the disappearance of Mr Randolph Carter, legendary occultist, academic, and explorer. We have been tasked with the disposal of his estate.

If you accept the commission, you will be representing an organisation* at the estate auction of Mr Randolph Carter. Including various household items, personal effects, and objects relating to his more esoteric activities, your organisation will give you priorities, information, and a pool of capital to spend in their interests. It is said that some of the lots possess strange and unique properties, and we anticipate heated interest.

Attendees will be able to confer, negotiate, and pool resources between collected lots; we encourage the avoidance of any underhand dealing. 

*We have been assured that no governments, universities, cults, or radical movements will be taking an interest in this sale.

This is the second of two pieces created as part of my residency at the London Lovecraft Festival 2025 (You can read about the other one here).

Where that one was gentle and reflective, this one was high-energy and competitive, with guests bidding on different lots, trying to crack an (in this premiere version, overly hard) puzzle, and above all, trying to make deals.

It's the sort of wild show that can only truly be done live. For one of its big tests was trying out a way to break the current standard actor:audience ratio for high-end interactive theatre of ideally 1:1-6, and maybe 1:10 if you have to.

Here, it was 1:50. But because it was an auction, with elements of LARP in how different audience groups were offered introductions to one another, that was possible.

Admittedly, the character I was playing (the auctioneer) did have a breakdown over the baffling amounts people were playing for what they perceived as tourist trash. But that was quite a fun deviation from my usual playing type.