When was the last time you walked around London ready to chat with strangers and embark on impulsive adventures? When immersive theatre is done well it can be a truly moving experience, but it takes a great production to transport you on the familiar streets of your own city.
As part of Lift Festival, 'documentary-theatre company' Look Left Look Right have adapted their award-winning Edinburgh production to the busy streets of Camden. In an area already overflowing with 'interesting' characters, it's the perfect setting for a series of unexpected encounters.
Once you leave your baggage behind (emotional and physical), you embark on a self-propelled journey across canals, through back streets, markets and beyond, where you meet characters, initiate conversations and are thrown into brief moments of other people's lives. Theatre and real life merge so that you don't know who is acting. Rumour has it that during the Edinburgh show, someone got lost and returned hours later thinking they had been in the performance the whole time.
'You Once Said Yes' really is what you make of it. Engage in each unique improvised scene, say yes and you may have some humbling, intimate, surreal moments. (Careful though, what you reveal may catch up with you later!) This Camden run has already sold out, but let's hope the makers bring it to other London areas so that we get the chance to see a secret side to more communities.