If you’ve never been to the Bush’s soon to be vacated original premises, this piece of audio theatre from Non Zero One isn’t really aimed at you.
Effectively a playful backstage tour cum farewell to the building, each show manoeuvres four participants through the Bush via instructions emanating from an ingenious variety of devices: phones, hidden speakers, MP3 players. Along the way we hear recorded anecdotes about the Bush of yore from the likes of Alan Rickman, Mike Bradwell and Tamara Harvey, and have our journey enlivened by such fun activities as rummaging through Bush artistic director Josie Rourke’s personal belongings and defacing the bogs with an invisible ink pen.
Despite the whimsical flourishes and a few anecdotal gems – particularly the revelation that directors used to cast plays by peering out of the office window and seeing which actors were out cottaging on Bush Green – it feels a little subdued next to the rollicking accounts that can be found in the autobiographies of former artistic directors Bradwell and Dominic Dromgoole (who for some reason isn’t interviewed here).
But it’s nonetheless entertaining and good-natured, and your final exit from the building – which is basically the entire point of the piece – is genuinely moving.