The Fringe presents plenty of opportunities for audiences to pretend to be someone else, but when wearing the shoes of another where would you draw the line? Blast Theory’s A Machine to See With casts you in the lead role of a heist movie, making you confront how far you will go in the name of art, and to what extent an individual can be held responsible for their actions.

From the moment your mobile phone rings with your first instructions, a faceless, nameless figure guides you around Edinburgh, narrating your journey with an epic, cinematic perspective. You form an odd relationship with the voice on the other end of your phone, never quite trusting his motivations and yet submitting to his every instruction. Not that he holds your hand as you go about your mission – in fact, A Machine to See With is quite brave in only taking the audience so far, forcing them to find their own feet or way out of problems so that more than once you feel oddly vulnerable. It’s an unusual sensation in a piece of interactive, digital theatre, but crucial for creating the emotions of the piece and taking ownership of your own destiny.

This type of site-specific work makes you think differently about your surroundings and the people you pass in the street. Suddenly you search for recognition in the face of anyone looking furtive, or indeed lost, on a mobile phone, but unfortunately this is where the experience disappoints. It gradually dawns on you that despite being encouraged to find familiarity or threats in the faces of others, you really are on your own, and again that feeling of isolation creeps in. There are a few, powerful moments of actual interactivity with the city around you when the thrill of the heist movie really comes alive, but with a little less emphasis on going on a guided walking tour and more direct interactive experiences the encounter would be even stronger.

The flexibility of the narrative to respond to events in the real world is essential to the individual’s experience of A Machine to See With. In the main, it was difficult to tell exactly how the audience response directly shaped the progress of the action; however when a spanner was thrown into the works, as must be expected when dallying in the criminal underworld, the drama quickly changed course and the tension was ramped up a gear. As the heist reaches its climax your heart starts to race and you question: are they really expecting me to do this?

A Machine to See With encourages you to confront who you are by playing at being another person entirely, and by the end you may well have surprised yourself at what you are capable of. The journey may be mapped out for you, the scenario thrust upon you, but the thrill is all your own.

Blast Theory’s A Machine to See With runs as part of the British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2011 at St George’s West from 24-28th August.

Back in 2009, I wrote an article proclaiming that a technology revolution had taken place and finally theatre was embracing a digitalised medium – and us as the audience could no longer ignore it. Since then, there have been increasing amounts of experimentation, delivery of high-tech multi-million pound productions and a blurring of the boundaries/lines between theatre, film and media. Technology meeting theatre is here, and companies such as Pilot Theatre, Proto Type Theatre, and Blast Theory, to name but a few, are increasingly bringing digitally-minded audiences into a new, technology-driven form of theatre.

As technology has been developing over the past few years, we’ve also seen our everyday activities rapidly integrating technology. The mobile phone, which would once bring us voice calls and text messages, now has the power to make us connected at all times through the Internet and video calling. Equally the internet has revolutionised entertainment in our homes: where once upon a time we’d dial-up, now we’re connected at super broadband speeds allowing us to download packets of data instantly.

Technology might have been invading our homes and our theatres, but there was little movement in seeing theatre being channelled back into our homes utilising technology. 2010 saw the launch of Digital Theatre, a pioneering experiment that digitally captured some of the UK’s highly sought after theatre from companies and theatres such as The Almeida, The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and The Royal Court presenting them in a downloadable format. I for one was taken aback by this sudden ability to have theatre on my laptop, on my TV(connecting laptop to TV monitor), in the kitchen or just about anywhere I saw fit. Naturally, Digital Theatre was hailed as revolutionary but also greeted with mild amusement at the thought of theatre in your home on demand.

Since Digital Theatre’s launch, a niggling feeling has been eating away at me. If theatre organisations were keen to get their audiences to view their work more widely and when they wanted to, surely there must also be companies wanting to give a more personal theatrical experience in your home. The first sign of things to come crept up rather unnoticed in the form of Tim Etchells’s A Short Message Spectacle (SMS) presented at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival in May 2010. By giving over your mobile number, as an audience you were suddenly jolted into Etchells’s poetic if slightly psychedelic clown-infested world via text messages. The beauty of SMS was its unpredictability, the sudden engagement you would have upon receiving messages, thrusting you back into the narrative regardless of time or location.

The action of delivering a text message may have been minimal, but it was Etchells’s ability to invade his audience’s minds through a device which has rarely been used as the sole staging of a piece. Were we moving towards theatre invading our everyday lives? Etchells had planted a seed and it was only a matter of time before the next experiment would take place.

Next was Such Tweet Sorrow, the reworking of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for a modern teen audience, in a collaboration between The RSC and Mudlark. Using the platform of Twitter, each character had a profile, and the story would unfold in real time. You can read my thoughts here, but on a personal level, it failed. What it showed, though, was a move towards drama with epic stories transcending the stage, into our everyday lives. Twitter was the platform, and as the majority of its users connect whilst on the move, Such Tweet Sorrow had the ability to bring the drama into your life, regardless of location. Who needs the theatre when the theatre is coming to you?

Whilst Such Tweet Sorrow might have missed the trick of integrating technology, drama and a mobile platform in a single existence, Blast Theory proved it had what it takes in Ivy4Evr. As an initial pilot between Blast Theory and Channel Four, Ivy4Evr was an interactive SMS drama, where you were not only connected (through your mobile) with Ivy, a young teenager dealing with sex, drugs and boys, but also had the ability to communicate with her. Using a computer that analyses the response from text messages received, Ivy has the ability to respond directly and individually to each audience member beginning conversations and plot developments all through messages sent back and forth. As a piece of interactive drama it was outstanding, revealing a compelling story of teenage life. Yes it was aimed at teenagers with an educational slant, but it has revolutionised my thinking about mobile personal theatre.

These uses of technology to develop theatre audiences are inventive, fun and are truly pushing the boundaries between conventional theatre and us as an audience, connected globally and remotely from theatre spaces. 2011 is already shaping up to be a year of technological performances for theatre, where both Digital Theatre and Blast Theory are presenting new work for a digitally minded audience.

The Internet has revolutionised our engagement with the world, and whilst we can watch videos of shows uploaded onto YouTube (copyright permitting), and can go to the cinema to watch The Met Opera or National Theatre beam theatre around the world, we have yet to experience theatre from different countries in the comfort of our homes and of an excellent standard. Gulf Stage, a project with Digital Theatre, The British Council and Qatar, sees the beginnings of this development of international theatre for an international audience. Last year, Qatar hosted the Gulf Co-operation Council Youth Theatre Festival, a youth-led theatre festival with countries such as UEA, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait presenting six original productions. Digital Theatre captured each of these productions and working with The British Council, is now presenting them free to watch online through the Digital Theatre website.

What are the chances of me going to the Gulf to see theatre? Very minimal. Whilst some large-scale theatres such as The Barbican produce international work, there is little theatre from the Middle East entering our theatres. Gulf Stage, however, will allow us to watch a series of shows of a professional standard from the comfort of our homes – for free. The British Council is breaking down those boundaries of cultural differences, and allowing a global audience the chance to view theatre without traveling the globe to do so. The future of international theatre? It could well be.

Finally I want to return to Blast Theory and its continued engagement in creating theatre that engages its audience individually within the unconventional theatrical setting. Whilst the Sundance Film Festival might not be on my usual agenda for theatre viewing, it just so happens that Blast Theory’s latest work, A Machine To See With, is being given its grand unveiling to a cinematic audience. It is being described as an “interactive heist movie”, where the audience plays the lead character. Signing up for the production sees your mobile phone going off upon reaching a set destination. in which a 45 minute series of events take place, led by a voice over the phone. As the protagonist, you must deal with a bank robbery and its aftermath on the streets of Salt Lake City.

It sounds like a farfetched idea, but considering its placement within the Sundance Film Festival, the action thriller aspect conveys exactly what film audiences can easily immerse themselves in. A Machine To See With is another great example of digital theatre, which puts you as an audience member into the heart of the drama using a mobile device. If it ever comes to the UK I’ll be leaping at the chance to take out a bank robber or two… or maybe just a few bankers!

Is theatre in the middle of a digital revolution? I think the answer is obvious: yes.

On 31st of December 2009 I wrote an article entitled ‘The Theatre of 2010 – My Hopes‘ which was a take on the ‘Best of…’ articles which seem to creep up every year in newspapers, websites and magazines. Instead of writing the best of 2010, I’m going back to this article, to see if any of them have been met, surpassed my hopes or indeed failed. Topics raised included environmentally friendly theatres, young peoples voices, and the use of social media.

#1 Continued West End Ticket Sales
It’s hard to judge the impact of ticket sales as there are currently no reports out to suggest that the West End suffered or gained from 2010. I can only imagine that from the success of 2009, it will be on the up. If the Kids Week statistics are anything to go by, which saw more than 16,000 tickets being sold and an extension of the scheme due to demand, then we’re on track to have another year of growth in the West End. Recession or not, theatre is still being loved by all. The real excitement will come in 2012 with the Olympics.

#2 Lighting in the lime light
Aside from the terrible pun, I wanted to see lighting designers getting more credit for their work. Their craft is a very simple, yet completely mediocre and complicated one to achieve. How to make something on stage look good, or else stopping it all going in the dark. Whilst I’ve not noticed an increase in critical praise of lighting designers’ work, I have on numerous occasions (here for example) highlighted the work of the lighting designers giving them the praise they deserve. So perhaps it’s not the done thing but I’m sure I could get someone interested to give a detailed review of lighting in the shows they see, but is that what people want to read? The quest goes on…

#3 Young people breaking through
Thinking about this previous remark of wanting to see more young people having a voice and discussion on theatre is a bit ironic. I had pointed out the existence of AYT as a place where I was doing this, but little did I think that it would end up being the place where this ‘revolution’ would take place. AYT has been growing, we have 4 journalists, 5 bloggers, 15 reviewers, all young and starting conversations on theatre and the arts. If that isn’t a break through I don’t know what is. Other highlights included If I Ruled The World Festival at the BAC, the Takeover Festival at the York Theatre Royal, Run Rabbit Run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Are young people starting to have their share on the stage?

#4 Internships On Top
If anything Internships are still running throughout theatres, but have also been under increasing pressure and criticism/criticism for their conduct throughout 2010. Are they exploiting young people, or valuable learning tools for engaging in the arts sector? The Future Jobs scheme opened up brilliant opportunities for apprentices and training programs across theatres – these being paid too. Sadly the Future Jobs scheme has been cut by the Government, at a great loss to young people. So what of the average internship? Well, I still support them, knowing the benefits of them myself, but they need the governments backing to offer paid opportunities to anyone, and not just those who are unemployed. AYT still maintains our list of theatre internships.

#5 Ecofriendly
I honestly believe that in a world where we are racked with a global warming crisis (despite it dying down in the media), theatres had to pull their weight in becoming more environmentally friendly. I had praised the work of the Arcola Theatre as “one of the leading theatres in tackling the green initiative” with their Arcola Energy project. My hope was to see other theatres and organisations taking an example from the Arcola and adapting it for themselves. 2010 saw the launch of the EcoVenue Scheme by Theatres Trust. A collection of 12 theatres became the first to be accepted onto the scheme with the aim of improving green initiatives and making their venues a more environmentally building. The EcoVenue Scheme has gone from strength to strength and now includes 48 venues. Verdict: A huge success, and whilst it’s still early days, the involvement of The Theatres Trust to begin this process is outstanding.

#6 Social Media For Better
I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how much Social Media would influence the way in which theatres interacted with their audiences in 2010. Whole marketing plans now include social media strategies to work better at the communication between theatres and their audiences. There have of course been some cock-ups along the way (National Theatre Twitter Muck Up) but there have been some effective uses of social media to truly push boundaries. I’m talking about of course Such Tweet Sorrow, the most adventerous thing the RSC has actually done for many years. Yes I hated it, but no one has come close to it since – unless you count Blast Theory’s SMS Drama. If 2010 was a good year for social media then 2011 is looking to be the year that real adventures and excitement is being made, and hopefully AYT will be able to report on each and everyone of them.

#7 The London Festival Fringe
I typed this name out, and failed to suppress my laughter. I had vowed that I wanted to see this London Festival which was attempting to rival the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to either “completely flop or completely blow all our minds”, the reality is neither. I remained in London during August putting on my own show as part of the Camden Fringe, and I have to say that not once did I hear of the London Festival Fringe. It did little to blow away the cob-webs of the London Fringe scene as promised. I had also hoped for a “better website, better organisation, and better ideas”, and this was not received. The website still looks horrendous, I’ve heard nothing but headaches over the way the LFF is managed and there were no ideas to make it any different than a copy-cat version of other cities. Verdict: A disappointing, but predictable outcome. The London Festival Fringe failed to leave it’s mark, or indeed ruffle any theatre loving people into a state of “we love London Theatre”. Back to the drawing board yes?

Did you have a hope for 2010? Was it met or more to the point disappointingly missed altogether? 2011 is going to be an exciting year, where theatres push further in their work with the recent funding cuts, and the need to become more ‘transparent’ in their campaigns and organisations.

Image by Andy Bird.

I’m a big technology lover it has to be said. I’ve got the iPhone, I’ve got the macbook and I’m up on the latest social networking devices. I combine all of these to be connected on the go, but there is one thing I’ve been relishing, and that falls into my obsession for theatre. Technology meeting Theatre on the go. There are many companies who are ultilising the latest technologies in their theatre work to explore the boundaries of theatre meeting technology which I have previously explored here. The work of Pilot Theatre and Slung Low instantly spring to mind and whilst these companies are excellent they don’t quite reach the level that the Bafta-nominated Brighton based company Blast Theory have reached in recent projects.

In their latest exploration of technology in performance Blast Theory has teamed up with Channel 4 Education to deliver an interactive SMS drama that has already been dubbed ‘the future’, called Ivy4Evr. The protagonist a 17 year old girl called Ivy is in a band, she lives in a small town, but most importantly will be delivering her thoughts to your phone in this pilot scheme for a week starting on the 10th October.

Ivy has left home because Lilsis has done the dirty on her and she’s no longer sure who her friends are. For a week she’ll tell you **everything** but can she trust you and what will you tell her?

So what is it about this project that has me excited?

Firstly the collaboration between Blast Theory and Channel 4. As one of the pioneering theatre companies working with digital technologies, anything that Blast Theory begins to explore will be adventurous and often ground breaking. Channel 4 have recently been funding arts based projects in relation to technology. Their involvement on Such Tweet Sorrows with The RSC (regardless of my opinion on the project) opened up Twitter to a whole new performance arena. I’m thrilled to see another theatre company being enlisted by Channel 4 to explore new work for young people.

The SMS Interaction excites me. When a text message is sent to you on your phone, you’re able to respond (service provider charges apply) to Ivy, and interact in conversations with her. She will “chat with you about sex, music and everything else that really matters to teenagers growing up in Britain today.” You’ll notice that there is a certain theme to Ivy4Evr, that of sex and drugs – for not only is this project performance based, but also heavily educational. The target age is teenagers, and the SMS functionality brings the drama out of the conventional theatres and into the pockets of young people.

Using SMS to interact with audiences is not new, earlier in the year Tim Etchells brought his A Short Message Spectacle to your mobile phone during Norfolk and Norwich Festival (NNF10). It was poetic, and beautifully written, containing a series of text messages sent during the festival describing events of a theatrical nature, but of course in a typical Etchells twisted manner. It was a big step forward to bringing performances outside the theatre and into your life on the go. Ivy4Evr however is a step in a whole new direction. Interaction, educational and most importantly an engagement with young people.

It will be interesting to see how ‘Ivy’ copes with some of the replies she gets during the pilot. Although saying this, judging from the development blog from Talk Web who have built the brains behind Ivy it looks like it might be more complex than just a simple interaction of text meeting a computer. Complex decoding and analysis will make this project personal and unique for each user.

Hopefully my interaction with Ivy4Evr will be as exciting as the anticipation I currently have for it. I’ll try to respond to my experiences but until then SIGN UP! (Sign up by Midnight on the 9th and you could win an iPad)

Sign up for Ivy4Evr on the website here. The project is running between 10th and 16th October.