What does it mean to be in London but immersed somewhere else entirely? Now that question finds its answer, not in a meditation class or nightclub, but in the pitch-black interior of a shipping container.
DARKFIELD, an acclaimed series of immersive audio experiences, returns to the city for the first time since 2022 with a month-long residency at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Known for staging out-of-body experiences in unconventional spaces, the company invites audiences to surrender their senses and step into another world, a space separate from East London’s pubs, traffic, and chatter.
Each DARKFIELD event is designed to unsettle, provoke, and transport. Using 360-degree audio and an absence of light, the production creates its unsettling encounters.
“We had one person in Edinburgh see the show 15 times,” says co-director Glen Neath.
Trying to pin down the show in words is part of the challenge: for many, its intrigue lies in the mystery.
“It’s quite hard to explain to audiences what to expect with our shows, so most of our marketing is necessarily vague,” Neath explains. “Although the experiences are in complete darkness, we spend a lot of time designing the sets. The world we build in the dark often relies on what the audience has seen before the lights go out”.
Within the intricately manufactured spaces, audiences don’t play characters: instead, the world unfolds around them.
“We sit them in the set, turn the lights out, and mess with their sense of what’s happening. The aim is to make it feel like the show is just for them,” he says.
The titles of the experiences themselves, FLIGHT, COMA, EULOGY, and ARCADE, are terse, spell-like nouns.
“They’re simple explainers,” says Neath. “Thematically they’re not connected, except that they all tap into common fears and anxieties.”
The use of shipping containers adds another layer to the productions. While “cargotecture” has cropped up everywhere from Hackney offices to upcycled homes, DARKFIELD’s choice is practical.
“We created two shows that toured theatres across the UK, but every new venue posed the same problems,” Neath says. “Containers gave us control over the space, and they’re inherently suited to touring.”
For first-time visitors, the immediate questions are which show to choose and how to approach it.
Neath suggests going in with an open mind: “People who embrace whatever happens enjoy the shows more. Sometimes people turn up with a ‘go on then, scare me’ attitude, and those are harder to break down.”
With this residency and DARKFIELD’s return to London also comes a greater ambition.
“From the beginning, our plan has been to open a park with multiple shows and a bar. We want to create a site that feels worth spending an evening at: seeing a few shows, having a drink, and chatting about what you’ve just been through,” Neath says.
Beyond the thrill and a few cheeky drinks, DARKFIELD aims to have audiences to walk away thinking.
“We want the shows to be fun and exciting, but also offer food for thought. Flight explores the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, for example, while Arcade was inspired by reading about free will.”
If visitors want to see more than one show, they even recommend allowing at least ten minutes of processing time in between.
For creative director Victoria Eyton, this residency’s resonance exists beyond the confines of the mind.
“Our workshop is in Newham, so it felt exciting to approach a site in our own neighbourhood, where we could build connections and relationships,” she says.
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is already a cultural hub, home to the V&A East, BBC, ABBA Voyage, Sadler’s Wells, and a steady stream of pop-up events.
Eyton adds: “We’re excited our pop-up site can sit alongside these institutions, providing a new type of experience for the area during our residency.”
DARKFIELD runs at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from 7 October to 2 November.
