Nunhead: Immersive drama in the cemetery
If you like your theatre immersive, and have the nerve to spend the evening in a cemetery – then the return of this extraordinary event, which sold out last year, may entice you to Nunhead in the coming weeks.
Nunhead Cemetery is one of the capital’s “Magnificent Seven” burial grounds, along with Highgate , up north. The Victorian statues and tangle of ivy-covered tombstones alone make it a breathtaking visit if you’ve never been, but the upcoming production of Biped’s Monitor should certainly heighten the senses.
Created by Arbonauts, a multi-disciplinary performance collective who play around with everything from opera to architecture in their live events, the show is a “re-imagining” of Italo Calvino’s Baron In the Trees. The original tale tells of an Italian eighteenth-century nobleman who goes to live in a forest by way of rebellion against his family. Up in the tree-tops, he “befriends flora, fauna, outlaws, exiles, politicians, philosophers, and women”. The audience is invited to roam free through the antique cemetery’s trees, chapel and avenues to observe the Baron above and the surreal action around, to a haunting operatic score.
Biped’s Monitor runs from next Wednesday, 31 July, to 4 August at Nunhead Cemetery, Linden Grove, SE15. Tickets are £12-15. To book, go to Arbonauts.org.
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