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Designed for audiences with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD), along with their families and carers, 2065: The Multi-Sensory Movie invites their audience members into the rebel forces of the not-too-distant future. We are greeted by an Archivist Rebel from the Future: our narrator who guides us through the tribulations and efforts of a small rebel force who live under an oppressive regime.
Rebel Packs – an archival box containing a variety of sensory stimuli that follow the course of the digital story – are included with each booking. Each item within the Rebel Pack is individually packaged and an itemised list is included, letting the viewers decide whether they want to be surprised or know exactly what they’re expecting to unpack.
Personally, I choose to be surprised. And to retain the surprise for any other aspiring rebels out there, I won’t disclose the contents of my Rebel Pack. What I will say, however, is that Frozen Light have faultlessly curated this entire experience.
The script, a team effort by Amber Onat Gregory, Lucy Garland and Kate O’Connor, is poetic and emotive, underpinned with signing throughout. The movie is fully scored, with each piece of music befitting the emotional heart of each scene. It is a short journey, amounting to just over half an hour if watched continuously without pausing. However, there is an option to watch in chapters or, of course, to pause for as long as you see fit while watching the continuous version.
Each chapter is punctuated with a sensory moment and the audience is prompted to open the corresponding package as that moment begins: it could be something to taste, or smell, or run between your fingers. Each moment matches up with the scene directly preceding it, so we are tasting and smelling and touching the same things that the rebels are tasting and smelling and touching.
From the moment we start watching to the final song of the movie (and the moment of opening the final sensory package), we are fully embedded within the world Lucy Garland and Amber Onat Gregory have created.
Creating theatre for those that theatre often forgets about is something very dear to my heart. And this experience is a fully inviting, and rather heart-warming, excursion that can be taken from the comfort of a couch, or a bed, or an exceptionally comfortable closet. It is a show that can be enjoyed by all ages, while also exploring topics such as oppression and fear in an accessible and believable way. And on top of that, it is fun.
The small touches such as the signing that accompanies the script, the acts of opening and preparing each sensory moment, and the continuous scoring, all contribute to making 2065 a holistic sensory experience. It opens a door to those who may not enjoy a two-hour long, dialogue-heavy show, or who can’t sit through a three-hour epic with only one opportunity for a bathroom break, and lets them know that theatre is for them too. The team at Frozen Light should be incredibly proud of this home-based immersive show and I hope to see more theatre like this, even as traditional theatres begin to open their doors once more.
2065: The Multi-Sensory Movie film will be available until 30th June 2021. Tickets are sold out for the Rebel Packs, but 2065 (the live version) will be touring the UK in late 2021 and throughout 2022.