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Deptford Storehouse
Until September 20
Producer: Sage & Jester
Concept creator: Liana Patarkatsishvili
Production designer: Alice Helps
Co-writers: Katie Lyons, Tristan Bernays, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Kathryn Bond, Caro Murphy, Rhik Samadder
Cast: Bonnie Adair, Chris Agha, Darrel Bailey, Dawn Butler, Grace Hussey-Burd, Elizabeth Hollingshead, Harriett O’Grady, Nat Kennedy, Nina Smith, Rob Leetham, Scott Karim, Zachary Pang plus the voices of Billy Howle, Kahryn Hunter, Toby Jones and Meera Syal
Running time: approximately 90 minutes
As the former CEO of the national independent TV and radio stations in Georgia, Liana Patarkatsishvili has strong views on freedom of expression and on attempts to stifle the truth.
She has taken her mission to alert the public to the dangers of misinformation and disinformation, and perhaps just muddle, to the banks of the River Thames in Deptford, where media magnate Rupert Murdoch once stored giant rolls of paper for his right-wing presses.
The premise of the action is that the late Brian Falcon founded a global archive in 1983, when the internet was born, to assess and store the world’s digital data. He set a deadline of January 1, 2025, for “The Great Aggregation” when truth would be revealed and we would all be free.
That deadline came and went, and the lies, truths and half-truths keep piling up unaggregated, meaning Falcon’s workers are demoralised, underfunded and overwhelmed, requiring trustees to agree emergency measures.
The audience members, welcomed with newspapers and “liminal tea” – alcoholic or not as you prefer – find they are the trustees. They are told they are the first outsiders to enter this world since 1983 and are taken on a journey through a pungent and beautiful maze that has been crafted in Murdoch’s old warehouse.
Under the leadership of designer Alice Helps, the realisation is extraordinary.
Over four months, we’re told in a programme note, 300 “specialists” worked to fill the 9,000 square metres of Deptford Storehouse with three tonnes of raw sheep’s wool and 18 tonnes of willow, creating 51 individual performance spaces.
Apart from the visiting trustees, they are populated by bookbinders and stackers, who tell us they haven’t seen daylight for 42 years. We also discover they have differing approaches to the truth.
As dense black ink leaks through the ceilings and attacks the artisanally bound books, there is the potential for the drama to be dark and tense.
Instead, however, this production opts, as Murdoch did, to give the public what it is believed to want. The ending is therefore upbeat as the trustees/audience members are asked what gives them hope.
“People with children are more likely to do positive things,” said a woman next to me. I had to disagree at such a sweeping generalisation and a slight on the childless. Clearly, the production had failed in its overly ambitious goal of immunising people against believing nonsense.
In its attendant aim of making immersive theatre accessible, it is far more successful, despite a daunting guidance list that comes with the ticket, warning of flashing lights and references to death.
We emerge unscathed and blinking in the spectacular, cathedral-like chamber of the final room of our tour before being led to a Thames-side terrace to look across to the towers of Canary Wharf and continue our debate with fellow trustees over another glass of liminal tea.
Storehouse.
Deptford Storehouse
Until September 20
Producer: Sage & Jester
Concept creator: Liana Patarkatsishvili
Production designer: Alice Helps
Co-writers: Katie Lyons, Tristan Bernays, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Kathryn Bond, Caro Murphy, Rhik Samadder
Cast: Bonnie Adair, Chris Agha, Darrel Bailey, Dawn Butler, Grace Hussey-Burd, Elizabeth Hollingshead, Harriett O’Grady, Nat Kennedy, Nina Smith, Rob Leetham, Scott Karim, Zachary Pang plus the voices of Billy Howle, Kahryn Hunter, Toby Jones and Meera Syal
Running time: approximately 90 minutes
As the former CEO of the national independent TV and radio stations in Georgia, Liana Patarkatsishvili has strong views on freedom of expression and on attempts to stifle the truth.
She has taken her mission to alert the public to the dangers of misinformation and disinformation, and perhaps just muddle, to the banks of the River Thames in Deptford, where media magnate Rupert Murdoch once stored giant rolls of paper for his right-wing presses.
The premise of the action is that the late Brian Falcon founded a global archive in 1983, when the internet was born, to assess and store the world’s digital data. He set a deadline of January 1, 2025, for “The Great Aggregation” when truth would be revealed and we would all be free.
That deadline came and went, and the lies, truths and half-truths keep piling up unaggregated, meaning Falcon’s workers are demoralised, underfunded and overwhelmed, requiring trustees to agree emergency measures.
The audience members, welcomed with newspapers and “liminal tea” – alcoholic or not as you prefer – find they are the trustees. They are told they are the first outsiders to enter this world since 1983 and are taken on a journey through a pungent and beautiful maze that has been crafted in Murdoch’s old warehouse.
Under the leadership of designer Alice Helps, the realisation is extraordinary.
Over four months, we’re told in a programme note, 300 “specialists” worked to fill the 9,000 square metres of Deptford Storehouse with three tonnes of raw sheep’s wool and 18 tonnes of willow, creating 51 individual performance spaces.
Apart from the visiting trustees, they are populated by bookbinders and stackers, who tell us they haven’t seen daylight for 42 years. We also discover they have differing approaches to the truth.
As dense black ink leaks through the ceilings and attacks the artisanally bound books, there is the potential for the drama to be dark and tense.
Instead, however, this production opts, as Murdoch did, to give the public what it is believed to want. The ending is therefore upbeat as the trustees/audience members are asked what gives them hope.
“People with children are more likely to do positive things,” said a woman next to me. I had to disagree at such a sweeping generalisation and a slight on the childless. Clearly, the production had failed in its overly ambitious goal of immunising people against believing nonsense.
In its attendant aim of making immersive theatre accessible, it is far more successful, despite a daunting guidance list that comes with the ticket, warning of flashing lights and references to death.
We emerge unscathed and blinking in the spectacular, cathedral-like chamber of the final room of our tour before being led to a Thames-side terrace to look across to the towers of Canary Wharf and continue our debate with fellow trustees over another glass of liminal tea.
Barbara Lewis © 2025.
By Barbara Lewis • performance, society, technology, theatre, year 2025 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, performance, society, technology, theatre