Going to the Depot

If we are to believe The Sun newspaper to be any sort of political swingometer, then I suppose it would seem that Gordon Brown is pretty well bound for the depot now, which is just where I was last night together with a few dozen other lucky and bewildered souls in the Mercury Theatre Company's 10th anniversary production.

In a typically audacious move, the company have moved outside the confines of the regular theatre and staged an art installation-cum-theatrical presentation of certain events in Colchester's history, turning the old Magdalen Street bus (and tram) depot into a mini-asylum, with audience "inmates" incorporated into the performance area in prison-like jackets and caps (mine was hopelessly small), just a breathing distance from the actors themselves - it's perhaps the one time I'll ever actually work "with" the Mercury Theatre, such was the level of audience and cast integration in the round.

The plot as such is a series of often stylised vignettes (with one recurring sub-plot about a missing child in red, reminiscent of Schindler's List and Don't Look Now), but beautifully lit and boldly staged, even though the acoustics are necessarily bad and the references to Colchester's history are often obscure. A booklet issued at the end - not the beginning - of the show only partly tries to explain things.

Some have found it brilliant, others deeply pretentious. I found it just a little obscure, but with vivid moments (such as being ushered through an area re-creating Severalls Mental Home with one of the characters being given EST), and it's perhaps also the first time when I've walked out of a play onto the streets with the effect of stepping from one frying pan into another.