Fancy being a spy for day? CoLab Theatre think most people do, so they’ve come up with Fifth Column, an immersive tech-war theatrical experience that splits the audiences into opposing teams and sets them about secret London locations. The writer/director Bertie Watkins promises a full-blown conspiracy plot; you can even take your chances at being a mole.

Fifth Column is also not too far removed from live gaming, employing geocaching, nfc and augmented reality to lead the narrative. Ultimately however, it’s all up the to the players – that would be you and the enemy. We put on our best Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy outfit and talked to Watkins and core collaborator Daniel James Thompson about the buzzworthy nature of ‘immersive’, the flashy yet simple to use technology they’ve taken advantage of and audience agency.

Run Riot: Can you introduce us to CoLab Theatre? Who are the company members and how did the company come to be?

Bertie Watkins: CoLab came about last year. It’s been an ambition of mine to create a technology driven immersive theatre company for several years now. We aim to immerse people within worlds full of narrative. We want to create environments where the audience can participate as much or as little as they want. Ultimately they become the curators of their own experience, active agents within exciting new environments.

Then earlier this year, Daniel James Thompson who I was working with on RIFT's Macbeth joined me in the company and from there it snowballed into the incredibly talented and robust company it is now. The CoLab team have been absolutely wonderful - Fifth Column wouldn't be what it is today without them.

Run Riot: Immersive is a popular word amongst theatre-makers and audiences at the moment, though like many popular terms it’s sometimes plastered on productions that are more non-traditional than immersive. What do you see as the essential ingredients of an immersive experience?

Bertie Watkins: Immersive is very much just a buzzword at the moment. It seems like it’s becoming a marketing tool rather than a definition of a type of theatre. What Fifth Column does which is slightly unique is instead of building a world around audiences for them to interact with, we immerse them in the world they already know and show them a completely different side - essentially making London the set. We do this by giving them the devices to immerse themselves and then they have the option to go as little or as far into the world as they want.

The essential ingredient for immersive theatre and particularly for defining it from live art is narrative. Story is important. If you haven't told a story, you haven't done your job. This is incredibly hard but it seems like a lot of immersive companies are getting better and better with it. The ironic thing about immersive theatre is that it’s generally defined by actor-audience interaction as well as putting audiences in a world. However, Punchdrunk are generally regarded as the being at the forefront of immersion but I never seem to get any actor interaction. I think as Josephine Machon says - it needs to be like going under water and looking up at the surface.  

Daniel Thompson: For me, immersive theatre is all about offering a world to the audience. A physical space where they can live, breathe and co-exist alongside the actors, the design and the narrative. It’s a lot about escapism. It’s about being able to forget that the outside world exists and focussing solely on the one that you inhabit for that short amount of time. What immersive theatre needs is for the audience to become a driving force of the piece - an active agent within the creating and sustainment of the world.

Run Riot: Fifth Column employs geocaching, nfc and augmented reality. At the risk of sounding like a 19^th century import: can you tell us more about what they are and what they do within the show?

Bertie Watkins: We primarily use the power of augmented reality to reveal narrative. It essentially makes a piece of paper become a screen by pointing your phone at it, which is lovely. Near field communication is placed around the locations as little bonus clues - it’s wonderful that suddenly you’re given a huge amount of information for placing your phone on top of something. It’s the same technology as your Oyster, it’s just your Oyster becomes a weapon in the spy world.

Run Riot: How much does the piece resonate with modern-day spy stories, those of surveillance, hacking or massive whistleblowing? What’s the story behind all the technology?

Bertie Watkins: It’s all about hacking and whistleblowing. It was a massive inspiration for the piece. That is why we’ve got two teams - the ETF and Astra’s Associates - essentially Hackers and Spies. The audience then battle it out together; the ending of the play depends on which one wins. You also get the choice to change sides and either become a mole for the other side or join in full force. Then the story is all about conspiracy - the 2008 bailout had more behind it than we ever could have thought…

Daniel Thompson: One of the great things about spy stories, even modern ones, is that they have a classic, timeless feel to it. The technology may be updated, the themes and content slightly different, but the second spies are mentioned, we are all on this same page. We all have preconceived ideas about who spies are and what they do, and letting audiences become part of that themselves is really exciting.

Run Riot:  How does the piece negotiate the balance between the attention the audience will devote to the screen and to their surroundings?

Daniel Thompson: Getting that balance right is definitely a struggle. Part of immersive theatre is offering audiences influence from many different sources and in many different forms. We have been tremendously lucky so far with some fantastic audiences who have really helped us understand that better, and as the run continues we are really eager to keep receiving that feedback to get a perfect balance to virtual reality and actual reality.

Run Riot: What part do London, its atmospheres, landmarks and tourist traps play in the show?

Daniel Thompson: London gives us this incredibly exciting playground to work in. Landmarks give the audience a sense of familiarity with their surroundings, allowing them to further immerse themselves into the world we are trying to create.

A place with so much buzz and tourist activity also works incredibly well in our favour. We try and sow the seed of doubt into the audiences’ minds from the very beginning. When you are surrounded by people, who can you really trust? From there, the audience can quite often become suspicious of most anyone they pass, which is really exciting! They start creating their own world more and more, and that’s not something we could possibly achieve on this scale without the atmosphere that London gives.

Run Riot: How dependant is the show on the audience and their levels of active participation? To what extent can the audience change the course of the experience?

Bertie Watkins: It’s all about the audience being up for engaging. Most do completely. Ironically the most problems we’ve had are people going to the pub beforehand so they get that tiny bit too far into it when they come to us and get scared and run around like madmen. There’s something about the spy world that makes people start acting in completely different ways. I guess it’s that inner desire to be James Bond for the day.

Daniel Thompson: The show is completely dependent on the audience's involvement. Essentially they are the piece. A show in the West End for example, could continue to play to 1 or 1000 audience members as there would not be any change to the story, the form, or the narrative. In immersive however, you need to create an environment where without the audience there, it just simply cannot exist. And that’s quite scary for us as theatre makers. Audiences could simply not turn up and the show just cannot go ahead. But it’s also incredibly exciting to be able to give people that amount of agency and control over the work.

Fifth Column

Secret Location

18 September - 15 November