Review Rundown: A Little Bit of Edinburgh, A Little Bit of London

Usually I try to write a snappy intro, but I’ve a bit of a headache and honestly the headline and deck have all the basics. Let’s get into it.

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Enitan's Game — Punchdrunk Enrichment
£12-55; London UK; through 1 September 2024

Tucked around the corner from Wembley Stadium is a more quirky arena: the setting for Enitan’s Game, a kid-friendly hour-long experience for Punchdrunkards (and other immersive enthusiasts) and their children. Telling the story of a family’s tradition of community play, visitors are quickly swept up in the frenzy of joining in one more round of the game invented by Enitan’s grandfather before his life celebration takes place.

I attend one of the standard sessions where children are expected, so while the kids take the lion’s share of participation and I don’t have much to do myself I’m still charmed and enthralled by the standard Punchdrunk-quality bells and whistles: the endearing pack-rat-yet-curated style of set design with light, sound, and haze all are there in the expert quality of execution we’ve come to expect. There’s a few surprising special effects: a Jumanji moment bewitches the group and elicits a few gasps from both generations, and there are one or two spooky moments that coast the edge between adolescence and mature thrills. I do have a couple calls to action but generally the grown-ups are there to watch the joy and wonder on the kids’ faces and to listen to the endearing story told by the two actors. There are adults-only sessions which welcome guests with a cocktail and close with a Q&A with members of the cast & creative team, but I’m assured by the host that the show runs exactly the same for both age groups; no changes to plot or acting style is made.

It’s prudent to note here that Punchdrunk Enrichment is a sister & separate company of Punchdrunk, and therefore while they share some fundamental members and elemental values they are not the same. Punchdrunk Enrichment’s design emphasis appears to be placed on gameplay and narrative, rather than the aesthetic and mature tones adult audiences have come to expect from sister company Punchdrunk; this is consistent with P.E.’s goal of creating experiences for education, community, and family audiences. Visitors would be wise to note this if planning a visit.

We’re all in favor of early indoctrination of the next generation of immersive enthusiasts & creators, and what better way than to pivot one of the biggest names in the game to get hold of ‘em early? Bring the kids (or borrow some) and start the journey together; Enitan’s Game is an ace in the hole.

— Shelley Snyder, London Curator

Edinburgh Fringe

AI: The Waiting Room — an immersive experience - Art Vox
From £15; Until 25th August

Generative Artificial Intelligence. If it’s not telling you that adding glue will help the cheese stay on your pizza, it is producing art of eight fingered children or smoking monkeys.

Some people say it’s the future. Those people are wrong. The phrase “I asked ChatGPT where to buy a stamp” floats into my mind during quiet moments.

I tried to give ’The Waiting Room’ a chance. It’s Edinburgh Fringe. I want to experience experiments and risk taking. Creatives trying and sometimes failing. It’s so vital for immersive pieces to be developed and able to react and grow in response to audiences. But this is clinical. Cold. Am I supposed to be charmed that the robot can say my name?

There are previous AI based works I have enjoyed.“Saint Jude”, by Swamp Motel, made a delightful mix of interactive performance and communication with an artificial intelligence.

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The show starts late. We hadn’t received the information we needed to bring headphones and smart phones. Then we can’t connect to the Internet in the venue. The AI generates stories slowly and the audience’s audio stories fall out of sync with each other. Being called up to get a note with a new task is not in sync with the AI telling us what to do.

We are in a Waiting Room to sell our digital avatar for use in adverts and political messages. Tasks are handed to us by a performer, wearing a paper mask for no explainable reason. “Write on the sticky note”, “take a selfie”. The AI has generated 24 mins of audio and “personal stories” based on my prompts.

Our audience is nervous, quiet. Long periods of silence.The performers seem unsure how to encourage us to interact. “Pick up a toy from a box and dance”. Why? What do I get out of this?

The purpose of a system is what it does. Immersive is beautiful in unique moments. This show isn’t a satirical look at a new form of art generation.

To paraphrase “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

In the end the AI stated that my desire to be a marine biologist and my selling of beard oil made a “salty liquid for the face”.

Well.

Quite.

— Thomas Jancis, London Correspondent

Non-Player Character: Live Virtual Reality Musical -
Brendan Bradley / Maurice Soque Jr / Michael Morran
From £15; Until August 26th

(It is worth noting that No Proscenium reviewed the online version of this work last year. But this was a chance to be in a real life space alongside the performers and live audience.)

Entering the hotel’s hall, containing a giant screen in the centre of the space, we are presented with a musician, to the side of a stage. This is ‘Non-Player Character’, a live musical taking place in virtual reality.

Performer and creator, Brendan Bradley (who played all the characters as well as singing throughout), welcomes us all and explains that, since the other company of performers hadn’t turned up, it was a chance to let our audience be involved in the show. I took the opportunity, so I am reporting my experience as a participant rather than an audience spectator.

Wearing Oculus headsets, I and three other audience members take on the avatars of colourful rock monsters. We have no legs and have blocky hands and faces. A giant grey being appears and mocks us for not doing anything. This is the Hero. He sings about how he is going to save the day, so we should watch. Then he is killed, leaving us alone with the Non Player Character. NPC falls into a deep depression now his friend is dead and we need to help him heal over the course of the musical.

A lot of the choices are made by the audience voting for the routes characters take as well as placing items into the space to interact with.

The VR, on the whole, held up. The NPC travels around the space and the songs echoed around us. NPC would ask questions and did a good job of handling the responses. A highlight was the green player who kept trying to get as close to NPC as possible.

Sometimes, it did just feel we were being dragged along by the narrative as we travelled from scene to scene. Sometimes we did the video game time fillers of trying to get stuck in holes, throwing rocks or just waving at each other. Which was quite wholesome.

Shows about grieving have become a common theme in this year’s Fringe. This was a wholesome and touching musical with impressive graphics and well performed live music and lyrics. For me, it was heightened by being able to participate in the action.

— Thomas Jancis, London Correspondent

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