Offie Awards Assessors' Choice (For Come Murder An Uncanny Thing)

"ominous and haunting, yet inviting... the thing that's really stuck with us is how much freedom each show affords its audience... it allows them to forge their own path and take real ownership of what unfolds." - Immersive Rumours

"a fantastic way to draw more people into fantasy worlds, blending opera, immersive theatre, and traditional fantasy game elements" - Theatre & Tonic

"simple but evocative, enhancing the eerie atmosphere and reinforcing the sense that we, the audience, are engaging in something both sacred and ominous" - The Reviews Hub

"I can’t remember the last time I felt so entranced by the environment, genuinely forgetting I was in Southwark while under its spell" - The Escape Roomer

"Completely immersive from the get-go... the vocal quality is beautiful" - Lost In Theatreland

COLAB Tower, 4th-30th March 2025

This show, as a creator, performer, and producer, was vast. I am extremely grateful to all those people who, since Come Bargain With Uncanny Things first emerged into the world in 2020, have supported the steps along the way as performers, partners, and members of our fantastical communities.

To be quite honest, at the time of writing (six months later) I am still struggling to form a coherent synthesis to put here.

We constructed a fantastical world, that guests could enter and shape, each show changing the ongoing world. Something which I don't think anybody else has ever done, and you can see evidence of in the newspapers below. It felt real and alive.

We created a world where the music expressed emotion and magic, thanks to wonderful singers and superbly engaged guests. It made the world feel tender, dramatic, and at times hilarious.

Above all, we made a show where the guests cared and felt safe. Cared enough to debate with genuine feeling about how to treat a captive uncanny thing, worry about the right way to serve their community, and speak genuinely of their troubles to the strange uncanny things. Safe enough to play, dance, and sing with one another, when they might never do so in the outside world.

It was also exhausting, and took a lot out of me. It asked a lot of its team. It taught me a lot about the sharp end of the entertainment sector; things I had known before and experienced viciously around funding, marketing, and audience wants and is willing to pay for in 2025.

So it is unlikely to return, this vast creation of mine. But I am glad that it existed.

The copy once read:

You are invited into a wyrd world of bargains, community, and magic in a trilogy of interactive immersive operas.

This is a world much like ours, with one exception.

Those creatures in old stories and legends: the fey in the shadow of ancient trees, the hellkin lingering in bloody cellars, the bastions chanting at the edge of hearing: they are real.

That flicker of movement in the corner of your eye, the faint laugh heard in an empty house - those were Uncanny Things. So too the unexpected gift, or inexplicable sickness. Not always, but often.

Doors to their labyrinths - strange pocket-worlds formed around the Things - bloom and vanish in stone henges, fog-filled streets, and oil-slicked puddles. Some hold strange kingdoms, mirrors of our own. Others, dangers that spread into our world.

The Uncanny Things Trilogy is a trio of shows where you join a community, coming together and deciding how to change your lives by mastering rituals, crafting offerings, and negotiating with the strange and powerful Uncanny Things.

With rich lore, total audience freedom, and a commitment to creating communities with our audiences, each audience’s choices will develop the world of the show further, creating a uniquely growing experience across the run. 

If you like dark rituals of iron and salt, tense bargains to preserve an eternal court or a child’s dreams, obsessive mages and glamorous monsters, or local council representatives just trying to keep everyone safe, this is for you: a unique kind of interactive theatre.

What’s In The Trilogy? 

Three shows - you can come to just one, all three, or return again and again to find out how your community cares for one another at the edge of the real…

Come Bargain With Uncanny Things

A ritual.

The Wyrd is rising. But if a community comes together and performs a ritual of bargaining, the Things’ power can be bound, controlled, used, or abused to solve their problems.

You have been asked to attend such a ritual in these difficult times, deciding who to help and how. As the wyrd rises, what will you do? (sold-out launch at COLAB Tavern, 2022)

Come Worship Our Uncanny King

A comedy.

Your community has become the court of an inexpressibly powerful uncanny thing; a place of laughter and hilarity. It requires you to honour it, praise it, and serve it. 

You will decide how as you strive for the favour amid the dangerous gaiety of the Uncanny King (work-in-progress sharing sold out at Voidspace Live, 2024).

Come Murder An Uncanny Thing

A tragedy.

A rogue bargainer has captured an Uncanny Thing. A dangerous, manipulative being. But in two and a half hours, its power will be released.

You are invited to guide it, channel it, and say how we should use our new power. Behold our enemy, an Uncanny Thing. You are here to decide how it dies (premiere 2025).

Trilogy In A Day

A chance to experience all three shows in a single day, happening on both the 22nd and 29th of March. While exact timings may shift, we plan 11:00-13:30 Come Bargain With Uncanny Things, 15:00-17:30 Come Worship Our Uncanny King, 19:00-21:30 Come Murder An Uncanny Thing. Come Worship and Come Murder can both run shorter than 2.5 hours depending on audience choices, so the overall day may end a little sooner.

***

To be quite honest, I still think these 7.5 hour shows were the best way to experience it. The Key of Dreams and the Ring Cycle have left me with a taste for endurance theatre.