Caro Meets Theatre Interview

Bonnie Adair: Never Ending Night

By Caro Moses | Published on Thursday 17 September 2015

I love interesting venues, and The Vaults is a brilliant place to stage a show – especially one set in a post-apocalyptic world, don’t you think…? ‘Never Ending Night’ is just such a show, and promises to be an immersive and involving performance.

To find out more about the show, a co-production from Upstanding Productions, Goatboy Enterprises and Actor’s Temple, I sent some questions over to creator Bonnie Adair.

CM: Tell us what ‘Never Ending Night’ is all about. Is there a linear narrative? What themes does the play draw on?
BA: ‘Never Ending Night’ is a post apocalyptic immersive performance drawing on themes of loss, love, hope and community. We wanted to explore what gives people their capacity to hope when they have lost everything they hold most dear.

CM: Is it based on any source material, or is this original?
BA: Our performance is created through devising. We have been deeply affected by the scale and horror of disasters worldwide in recent years and wanted to find a way to put these into context and to give an audience the opportunity to reflect on the effects these experiences have on communities

CM: Can you tell us a bit about the immersive nature of the piece? In what ways does it involve the audiences?
BA: In order to give our audience a moving and full experience, we wanted to allow them to be free to choose their own path within our performance. We also wanted to create a theatrical imagining of what life would be like under threat of a worldwide pandemic, and give the audience a sense of military & medical control.

CM: How did you go about creating it? Can you explain the process?
BA: The entire performance has been devised, so every night is slightly different. Our actors have developed characters with the director and then developed character relationships in rehearsal under the circumstances of the pandemic.

CM: What gave you the idea for this? What inspired you to create it?
BA: We felt overwhelmed by how many awful disasters were initially reported in the news and how often these stories were forgotten in the wake of a new disaster. We also felt that we were bombarded with media reportage and yet had stopped being able to emotionally respond to these situations. We questioned how we would feel if anything happened to upset or unbalance our security and privilege in the UK, and wanted to explore this idea further.

CM: It’s a great venue for it – was the choice of venue very important for a piece like this?
BA: We were delighted to be able to work at The Vaults as it is a venue known for cutting edge immersive work. We also knew we needed to work in an unconventional space in order to create the immersive world of ‘Never Ending Night’.

CM: Can you see the show being performed elsewhere? Is it ‘tourable’? Or is this a one-off run?
BA: Yes. There is the potential for the production to transfer to another venue.

CM: What’s next for you? Anything new in development?
BA: Our creative team are all working on a variety of projects. To keep up to date check our websites, and follow us on Twitter (see below).

‘Never Ending Night’ is on at The Vaults from 23-25 Sep. See this page here for more info and tickets.

Photo: Jonny Bosworth