A MIDNIGHT VISIT: POE-SITIVELY SPOOKY EXCELLENCE

This image: James Raggatt as Poe and Bobbie-Jean Henning as Virginia, Photo: Tim Da-Rin
Featured image: Hannah Raven as Ligeia, Photo:Tim Da-Rin

“Believe nothing of what you hear and a third of what you see!”

And that’s as good advice as any from the Undertaker as he greets and discreetly separates you from the familiarity of your companions.  A MIDNIGHT VISIT is unpredictable, illusive, intrinsically designed for deception.  Yet … everything is as it seems.  Cupboards, drawers, open at a touch to reveal their secrets, notes hidden can be held to the light and read, characters are knowable by their look and actions.   The angel is in the detail here and the devil is loose in the imagination.

Taking the works of Edgar Allan Poe as a starting point, A MIDNIGHT VISIT is immersive worldbuilding writ large inside an abandoned warehouse.  Rooms have been created within the theme, characters roam within the narratives and obfuscation is rife.  Sand and grass vie for attention as you, and the strangers around you, bond in wonder.  Pick up a patient chart in the decay of an antique ward and several people will join you to peer, in an attempt at understanding.

The creation of these 34 separate spaces is extraordinary in its detail.  Labels on bottles, ceilings in rooms and secreted spaces for exploring give the experience breadth and verisimilitude.  But it is the performances that propel a story that is as individual as each viewer.  My experience was so different to my companion that the hour drive home flew on Raven’s wings.

And Poe is all about for those who know.  In the white glare of a small room, a tell-tale heart beats ineffably.  Still against a wall I watched in breathless reverence as he spoke to her of ‘no other thought’.  ‘Nevermore’ proscribes a no-go and in the silence of the experience a wave of an artist’s hand is enough to chill in its warning of been walled in for eternity.  My friend had never heard of the macabre wordsmith, Poe, but the pendulum has swung to inspire her to immerse in the pit of his work.

The divinity of the detail is exquisite.  Swathes and drapes move gently to divide and occasionally fright in the wake of superbly installed airconditioning.  Modern cables do not impact on the eye, all of the construction and conception is in keeping with period elements.  Speakers are hidden above to scare and disorient as you walk under the soundscape or are discreet in the corners in appropriate colours.  Lighting compounds the atmosphere with practical fixtures that gloom in places and glare in others.

And that’s all you get from me … more would be a disservice.  ‘All that we see and seem is but a dream within a dream’ and A MIDNIGHT VISIT bears its nightmare with long intervals of horrible sanity.

Print allA MIDNIGHT VISIT is now open for spooky attendance, more information at their [Facebook] and  [Instagram]. And you can read an interview with Kirsten Siddle one of the Creative Producers here.

Megan Drury as The Actress, Photo: Tim Da-Rin