NOW FUNDING: Come Bargain Trilogy

Virtually Opera’s Come Bargain With Uncanny Things charmed our London curator back in 2022 with its off-beat riff on the most ancient of immersive experiences: stumbling into an alternate reality on the inside of a faerie ring and bargaining with the creatures there who take an interest in you.

Or so I’m told.

Virtually Opera’s Leo Doulton has set up a crowdfund to produce: a trio of interactive immersive operas where you come and bargain with uncanny things: those creatures in old stories and legends flickering in the corner of your eye; beings of gifts and sickness; beings that we can bind and be bound by, for better and worse.

The trilogy consists of:

• Come Bargain With Uncanny Things, a ritualistic gathering where a local community try to solve their problems with supernatural bargains
• Come Worship Our Uncanny King, an energetic comedy where the members of an Uncanny Thing’s court try to win favour
• Come Murder An Uncanny Thing, a philosophical tragedy where a vigilante asks you: what justice suits a strange, dangerous, and finally captive Uncanny Thing?

Come Bargain had its premiere in 2022 and a test version of Come Worship ran at voidspace 2024 earlier this year. The campaign has reached £1K of its £4K goal as of this writing, with just 22 days left to bring the cycle to life.

We checked in with Leo Doulton, creator of the Come Bargain cycle about the highly interactive shows and the campaign to summon them to our mortal plane.

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This is No Proscenium’s NOW FUNDING, a look at immersive experiences & events currently crowdfunding. To learn more about how your event could be considered for the feature check out How To Get Covered By NoPro.

No Proscenium: Tell us a little bit about this planned experience. What’s it about? What makes it immersive?

Leo Doulton: If you’re an audience member, you’re going to step into an eldritch world as part of a community; a group of people who have to deal with Uncanny Things — those beings of folklore and myth at the edge of vision, heard laughing in the shadows.

That community might be locals solving their neighbourhood’s problems with occult deals, the court of an unpredictable fey monarch, or a mob gathered to try and decide on what justice looks like for a captive monster.

How you deal with that situation is up to you; that community is going to decide what to do, how to do it, and face the consequences — together.

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Oh, also it’s an interactive immersive opera.

NP: What is the inspiration for your upcoming experience?

LD: Essentially, I wanted to merge things I loved; situation-room interactive immersive like Parabolic’s Crisis? What Crisis?, operas like Akhnaten where music creates ritualistic magic, and urban fantasy like Neverwhere or Interview With The Vampire where dangerous creatures lurk at the edge of reality. Terry Pratchett and Ursula Le Guinn’s love of humanity and community.

Because hopefully other people love the chance to enter a wyrd world and practice being human.

NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this upcoming experience?

LD: Hmm…

It’s a totally new kind of opera. You’re not just sitting there in silence listening to pre-written music; everything is created in response to the audience, reflecting how the world and characters are changing. If the audience make the world more dangerous or magical, it’s going to sound totally different to when it’s mundane and safe. And you can hear the characters’ different feelings about those choices. It’s beautiful, like a ceremony or other ritual, letting you share someone’s emotions like only music can.

And I’m really excited by it being a trilogy. Each part works as a stand-alone show (a ritual, a comedy, and a tragedy), reflecting a different part of how we deal with the world when we’re equals, powerful, or weak. Three ways to explore the same occult world and its rich lore.

But it’s ongoing. If you come multiple times, you’ll develop relationships with the characters and see the impact your communities have on the world. If one night your group create a large magical tree in the park, that might be a problem the next show’s audience is dealing with. The world gets nurtured and shaped by the audience.

Which excites me, at least.

NP: Have you crowdfunded before? If so, is there anything different about your experience (or expectations) this time?

LD: No. I’m hopeful that this time, we’ll be able to not just form a community each show, but across the whole run.

NP: What are some of the perks on offer for backers?

LD: There’s the classics of mugs, priority booking, acknowledgements on social media, and online hangouts with the team, but also stuff tied to the show like specially-written histories, folk songs, and safety guides from the world of the show.

At the upper tiers, there’s also the chance to get yourself written into that world, and receive personalised coachings.

But my favourite is a monthly tabletop roleplaying game session. I’m rather looking forward to testing out worldbuilding ideas while playing with some of our supporters!

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