I sat across the table from my friend who was one of a few people in my strict social bubble willing to join me for this experience. We exchanged glances filled with nervous anticipation before embarking on the audio journey provided to us by Darkfield’s Double and Vistors. Both proved to be incredibly engaging and at times, quite poignant.

Darkfield is a British immersive theatre company who has been gaining quite the attention from both audiences in the UK and Australia. They created a radio style app to host their productions called Darkfield Radio. This allows for multiple parties to participate in an experience at once, similar to going to the theatre in person and watching a production with a room full of strangers. While we never interacted with anyone outside of our intimate bubble, it was a neat thought that other pairs all over were going through the exact same experience.

We started our night with Double, which provided incredible imagery from the sole use of sound. I was incredibly impressed with how immersive this experience was despite only taking place through a radio-style app. We both found ourselves transported out of the familiar kitchen, and into a foreign room with different furniture placement. The various uses of voice, tone, and sound helped to create an engaging atmosphere. The sound of opening drawers and moving objects in the background created a grounding realism that easily inserted me into another world.

Double demonstrated a phenomenal use of showing, rather than telling in regards to creating an environment around us, which is extremely hard with only the use of audio. The incredible audio experience was driven home by the incredible acting of Chris Brett Bailey. Chris accomplished a lot within the role and managed to captivate the audience and create such a dynamic experience. I was extremely impressed by his range and capabilities. Overall, Double was phenomenal and left my friend and I speechless and feeling a wide range of emotions. It set me up with high expectations for Visitors and boy, were those high expectations met.

After a short break to recompose ourselves, we were ready to tackle Visitors. We quickly learned that a break was necessary, as Visitors proved to be equally engaging and heart crushing. While my friend and I sat on opposite sides of the living room for this experience, this experience felt more intimate. Once again, Darkfield did an incredible job creating a complete environment out of only an audio experience. At times, it genuinely felt like we had two ethereal individuals in the room with us. Sonya Seva and Greer Dale-Foulkes were bewitching and managed to create intimate moments by changing their tone and “distance” from us, whispering in our ears to draw us further into their reality. For a moment, we were separated during the experience, which added a surprising element of fear. I initially assumed that we were experiencing different perspectives, but upon later discussion, we discovered that we had experienced the same thing. Overall, Visitors proved to be enchanting, and left us feeling like we gained a new perspective in life, or maybe it was just the couple inhabiting our bodies.

I was incredibly impressed by Darkfield and their accomplishments with both Double and Visitors. Both shows were executed extremely well and were put together beautifully. They left us mesmerized by what could be done in the confines of a solely auditory experience. This was the first immersive experience for my friend, and she was grateful to have such a solid show be her first. We highly recommend checking out either or both shows. The shows run for 20 minutes, and I swear those 20 minutes felt like 2.

Tickets are only about $15 for 2 people. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit: https://www.darkfield.org/radio

About the Author

Linnea Swanson enjoys writing about things that scare her. When not writing, she enjoys reading and screaming into the void.