Three thoughts I have never had whilst at the theatre:

1) Wouldn’t it be great if my unbrushed hair and spotty face could be projected via a live feed camera to a room full of strangers?

2) I love my personal possessions being tampered with and paraded around on stage without my consent.

3) Air horns and naked butt cheeks will make for a really original piece of theatre.

Unfortunately, all these things featured in Audience at the Soho Theatre. Audience is less a piece of theatre and more a social experiment. I like social experiments, I just like to know I’m going to be part of one.

Whilst raising some interesting points about the role of an audience and why we go to the theatre, this piece lacked any sense of coherence or dramatic shape. There were some clever moments but there was also a real mean-spiritedness about the actors’ attitude to their paying public. This was to such an extent that most members of the audience didn’t applaud when asked to (via a projection screen) at the end, but rather defiantly clapped when asked to stop. I don’t believe that the role of theatre is necessarily to make an audience feel safe and comforted, however whilst performance group Ontroerend Goed should be commended for the sense of danger and uncertainty it created, it also exhibited a lack a basic respect for the people who had come to see them.

Audience is a piece of theatre performed by four actors and a cameraman. From the very beginning of the evening, there is a direct relationship between actors and audience: the actors address the audience, who are forcefully encouraged to participate and respond. It is really interesting to watch how differently people react, and the audience involvement is initially fascinating.

Where this show falls down, I felt, is in the actor’s inability to successfully manage this relationship. As most pantomime dames will ably illustrate, if you want an audience to do potentially embarrassing things, you must first be charm personified. These actors quickly succeeded in alienating their audience (first walkout by angered audience members at around twenty-five minutes in), and the evening progressed fairly painfully. Those who stayed to the end may have found the video montage of political rallies to emotive music at the end faintly patronising – a limp attempt to give some greater significance to the production.

The losers in all of this were the title characters of the show, the audience. A couple in front of me looked decidedly uncomfortable. They had paid good money to find themselves humiliated and embarrassed for an hour. As a result, I would be surprised if they chose to go and see an interactive show again. With so much fantastic work of this nature being produced, this would be a mighty shame. Ontroerend Goed should perhaps look to developing a piece of theatre that celebrates the diversity and importance of the audience, rather than turning them into a laughing stock.

Audience is playing at the Soho Theatre until 7 January 2012. For more information and tickets, see the Soho Theatre website. TICKET OFFER: See Audience for only £10 until 23 Dec. Find the offer code here.