Ring

 Last night I saw Ring at Battersea Arts Centre. The show is described as "a surreal sound journey in complete darkness and an antidote to choice. Wearing headphones that amplify every intimate detail, you are transported to another room very similar to the one you entered... But in this room you have been recognised." The anticipation as to what might happen was a lot scarier than the experience itself, especially after I had settled in and calmed down a bit. But it is pitch black in the room, no light at all, and it's surprising how claustrophobic that can make you feel in so large a space. At the start we are told that if we can't handle this darkness for fifty minutes then now is the time to leave, and I was surprised that some people got up and walked. I thought they might have been actors planted there to raise the fear factor for other audience members... but maybe not. One of the reasons I personally felt so unsettled at the start was because I had just seen a crashed car on the road outside the theatre. There were three fire engines and two ambulances, and as I passed the car I saw a woman staring straight ahead with eyes open, but not moving. I hope she was still alive, and just in shock. It was very disconcerting, and then to go straight into this tense situation in the BAC, for a moment I thought of walking as well. Sometimes real life is far more fightening than fiction ever can be. The soundscape on the headphones is supremely clever, and plays mischievous tricks with your mind whilst you remain safe in the knowldge that nothing bad can actually happen to you. Now and then I drifted away from the story to think about how good the sound was, and to marvel at how they had recorded this to make it sound so realistic. This probably stopped me from fully immersing myself in the experience, because after the show some audience members were saying how scary it was, and I was just thinking how technically brilliant it had been. It's going on tour, catch it if you can.