Viola’s Room by Punchdrunk – Reviews

"Punchdrunk’s gothic tale of puzzling wonder"

"Helena Bonham Carter narrates as a bare-footed audience explore exquisite rooms in this unsettling, grief-soaked journey into the night"

"The immersive adventure begins with a sleep. We are invited to lie down as the lights fade and the story begins, narrated by Helena Bonham Carter. Her voice pours into our ears through binaural headphones, sometimes velvety and playful, other times a scratching whisper."

"... it is a darkly alluring production which plays with well-worn tropes but spins them in unfamiliar ways."

"The story does not follow rational logic but turns into a weird kind of liminal babble dealing in unnameable fear, and you feel it as you travel through ever darker, narrower spaces."

"Barely an hour long, it inspires so much puzzling wonder that you want to go straight back in to find other undisturbed paths in the search for Viola."

"A Gothic bedtime story"

"The masters of immersive theatre return with a delicate, intimate tale, narrated by Helena Bonham Carter"

"Viola’s Room is intimate, delicate and uncanny."

"Unlike previous Punchdrunk shows, we don’t wander at will but are guided, drawn on by a glowing light and by Helena Bonham Carter’s hypnotic narration. It’s not actors here, but our senses and imagination that people the story."

"As the narrative unfolds, we travel with it, creeping through a maze of dimly lit passages, coming suddenly upon spookily empty locations. Light (designed by Simon Wilkinson) plays a huge role — dancing softly in front of you, flooding through the stained glass of a chapel window, slowly expanding to reveal an eerily abandoned meal. Gareth Fry’s sophisticated sound design also conjures pictures in your mind."

"It invites us to explore the role of storytelling and fantasy to process loss and change, to embrace the dark and find the light."

"Sinister and exquisite"

"Punchdrunk’s new experiential audio-led fairytale is beautifully wrought"

"Reviewing a Punchdrunk show is a delicate dance between the suggestion of atmosphere and the avoidance of spoilers, and that’s particularly the case here, with a more linear plot than usual involved. What I can reveal is that this is a dreamlike wander through a fairytale world, which we experience barefoot"

"... the story itself – though couched by Johnson in gorgeous, evocative language – ultimately feels a little flimsy. But for all the continuing expansion of immersive theatre, there’s still no one quite like Punchdrunk; and this is a beautifully wrought enchantment that skilfully blends the exquisite and the sinister."

"Punchdrunk’s spooky fairytale is the immersive legends’ best show in years, with a terrifically effective ’90s soundtrack"

"... a change happens after our second visit to Viola’s bedroom - the show becomes vastly more immersive. That‘s a word that has been so overused in recent years as to feel largely meaningless. But you can use it pretty guilt free for the latter half of ‘Viola’s Room’. Even in Punchdrunk’s classic shows, you felt relatively distanced from the situation, a spectator able to walk about the show freely but not involved in the action."

"By its climax I felt like a character in a horror film, not least because of the tremendous soundtrack relayed by Gareth Fry’s extraordinary sound design"

"As with a lot of Punchdrunk’s work, the plot isn’t the point of it exactly. The narration means the story is vastly easier to follow than that of the bulk of their shows, but it essentially amounts to an Angela Carter-ish dark fairy tale that teeters on the generic. However, it absolutely provides the correct beats for the astonishing creative team to do their work. The deeper into the labyrinth you go, the more you feel like part of the labyrinth, the less you feel like you’ll escape."

"Helena Bonham Carter leads you into a moonlit world you won’t want to leave"

"Punchdrunk, pioneers in immersive theatre, veer off in a new direction with a refreshing production that casts a simple, singular spell"

"Now, with more resources, and such a huge following that Helena Bonham Carter, that queen of Gothic delight, has been enlisted to record the narration, director Felix Barrett has “scaled-up”, taking audience-members on a journey lasting about an hour, winding through a warren of interiors. Still, intimacy is the watchword – parties are kept to a maximum of six barefoot, headphone-wearing, unmasked participants."

"There are moments of total darkness, and those inclined to panic when lights go low, or in confined spaces, should prepare accordingly. But what staves off alarm is the sense that you’re always in good hands, plus the reassurance of Bonham Carter’s words in your ear, words accompanied by swells of music that have a Hollywoody, even Tim Burton-like, quality of enchantment."

"But for me, in refreshing contrast with the overload of The Burnt City, it cast a simple, singular spell. Like Viola, I couldn’t quite bear to tear myself away; and in surrendering to feeling lost there lies an intoxicating sense of self-discovery."

"Punchdrunk guide us through a gothic tale with ingenious lighting and Helena Bonham Carter’s whispers"

"It was time Punchdrunk took a new turning – and they have. Viola’s Room is a departure for the immersive magicians, led by artistic director Felix Barrett. It is not only that, after the spacious grandeur of The Burnt City, this is a surprisingly intimate show."

"Helena Bonham Carter’s susurrated narration has the cosy bedtime edge taken off it by a slight rasp in her voice, and her knowingness. Which is as it should be. Though often exquisite, sometimes apparently folkloric, Viola’s Room is sophisticated in its paradoxes. Its story is about compulsion and loss of control, yet this is the show in which Punchdrunk has most evidently controlled its own audience."

"Stunning scenery, but a thin story"

"This underwhelming new show lacks the epic scope and humming crowds of the immersive theatre company’s best work"

"Would you go to SE18 to have Helena Bonham Carter whisper a gothic bedtime yarn in your ear? That’s effectively the offer of Punchdrunk’s underwhelming new show, in which the actress’s recorded voice, playing over headphones, guides small groups of barefoot punters through a series of scenarios from the story of a doomed princess."

"The themes are transgression and possession at the point of sexual maturity, the language florid. The moon is “an orb rising, grotesquely pregnant”, for instance. I suspect there’s also a joke in the title’s initials, VR – Punchdrunk suggesting that their form of virtual reality is an experiential alternative to the online kind."

"Above all, one really misses the epic scope and the thronging but aloof human crowds of the big, immersive shows with which Punchdrunk made their name."

"Meanwhile at the Thameside warehouse HQ of the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk, there is another show I felt a bit of an ingrate for not loving more. In Viola’s Room, the director Felix Barrett can be found laying on an intimate but unpredictable labyrinth for small groups."

"The set is the star. There are sequences here I won’t forget, but the story doesn’t feel rich enough to merit such exquisitely crafted treatment. So an unwanted thought bubble reading “Is that it?” hovered above me as I blinked my way into the daylight after 45 minutes. Fabulous trimmings; needs more meat."