2015MIDDLEC_H3There’s nothing quite like immersive theatre. I find myself sitting on the work surfaces in the dingy basement kitchen of a theatre; the industrial lights are cut, door bursts open and immediately armed men enter in clown masks and tracksuits. Welcome to Comfort Slaves, quite possibly one of the most intense shows I’ve ever been in. Any sense of security I have is slaughtered the second a clown-mask-clad man is holding a gun to my face and I realise that I am rather a long way from the exit.

Comfort Slaves is a direct confrontation of comfort itself – i.e., a direct confrontation of us. They accuse us of stumbling through life with blind naivety and getting too used to our middle-class comforts: TV; money; blissful ignorance. The aim here is clearly to shock us out of this. That much is evident from the second the production starts.

Comfort Slaves also seems to function in reverse, giving us grotesque, thoroughly disturbing scenes at the beginning and more of a narrative towards the end. When I say grotesque, I mean absolutely horrendous and slightly traumatising. This show should probably come with about 20 trigger warnings.

Then again, this is the point. Comfort Slaves sets out to address what shocks us. But some of the things they use to shock here – most notably, forced abortion and child rape – don’t shock us because we are an ignorant, lapdog society. These things shock because of the human ability to empathise, and this isn’t something we need to be chastised for. Comfort Slaves resonates more in its exploration of themes like political corruption and scandal, and these themes can be just as shocking without being grotesque. But Comfort Slaves still makes some very valid points. Particularly interesting is a monologue about how we are shocked more by liberal use of swear words than we are of mass-genocide in warring countries, and there’s a harrowing truth in this.

We’re know Comfort Slaves is immersive, so naturally we expect to be right in there with the action. But I don’t think any of us expected to this level. I would forget that that it’s only theatre if it weren’t for the guy opposite me wearing a WTFringe t-shirt. These levels of immersion work for such a brutal subject matter, but it’s certainly not for the faint hearted.

Comfort Slaves is playing at the New Town Theatre (venue 7) until August 30. For more information, visit the Fringe website.