COMING SOON: The Uncanny Things Trilogy
In London? Come bargain with things and worship kings, all whilst we sing, and travel down paths most uncanny.
Virtually Opera’s The Uncanny Things Trilogy first caught our eye years ago with Come Bargain With Uncanny Things, a charming “immersive eldritch opera” that invited guests to dive into a stack of craft supplies and find a way to appease a thing from beyond reason.
Building on the success of that production creator Leo Doulton has spun up a whole trilogy set in the Uncanny Things universe that brings guests deeper into “a wyrd world of bargains, community, and magic” in most operas that are most unconventional.
We caught up with Doulton via the eldritch powers of email to learn more about the trio of shows that kick off March 4th in London.
This is No Proscenium’s COMING SOON, a look at ongoing immersive experiences & events. To learn more about how your event could be considered for the feature check out How To Get Covered By NoPro.
NoPro is 100% reader & listener supported. Join our Patreon campaign to secure & expand our coverage of Everything Immersive!
NO PROSCENIUM: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?
Leo Doulton: The Uncanny Things Trilogy is three interactive immersive operas, where your community negotiates with supernatural beings and each other.
That might be in a ritual to help your community with local issues (Come Bargain With Uncanny Things), as a member of that same community facing a being demanding worship (Come Worship Our Uncanny King), or seizing the power of such a creature with dark magic (Come Murder An Uncanny Thing).
That is to say, they’re about how we, a community in that world, relate to the Uncanny Things and, metaphorically, our community, each other, and the world.
NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?
LD: I love urban fantasy, folklore and weird fiction set in a world almost like our own (think The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Magnus Archives).
Combining interactive theatre’s “you’re a person in a world almost like your day-to-day life” and opera’s “let’s reach into a (spiritual/emotional/conceptual) world beyond the everyday” makes the Trilogy really fulfill that fantasy of stepping into a magical world where humans matter.
Get NoPro Newswire’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
SubscribeSubscribe
I wanted to make something that used interactive theatre’s power in the lonely 21st century; shows that bring a community together each night, to try and be decent in difficult times, to allow them to make something beautiful within the safe, playful spaces imagined worlds can create.
NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?
LD: The interactive immersive/opera fusion is the most obviously unusual part! Our music is fully improvised, so when you change the world, you change the music too (within the story, it’s how characters aid you doing magic).
The other big excitement is that all three shows are set in the same ongoing world. Any individual show offers a distinctly different, standalone night out — come to Come Bargain for ritual, Come Worship for comedy, or Come Murder for dark tragedy.
But if you come to several, you’re going to see how each night builds that world, build relationships, and really sink into being a part of this imagined community.
NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?
LD: Other than people actually liking these shows, which remains a perpetual surprise when I make something…
It’s probably discovering that Come Worship is a comedy. Yes, it’s about being trapped by an unpredictable, powerful fey monarch — but that makes it a farce as easily as a tragedy.
NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience?
LP: Play a warlock in Dungeons & Dragons, The Doomed in Masks, or Grant Howitt’s gloriously horrifying Fetch.
Read something based on Faust, listen to The Magnus Archives, or watch Constantine. Try and do the right thing, even though the planet’s burning and politics is… a thing.
And certainly read any Terry Pratchett featuring Granny Weatherwax, or most Ursula Le Guin but especially The Word For World Is Forest or A Wizard of Earthsea.
Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, home of NoPro’s show listings.
NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers. Join them today and get access to our Newsletter and Discord! You can also GIFT memberships.
In addition to the No Proscenium website and our podcast, and you can find NoPro on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and in the Facebook community also named Everything Immersive.