This week - A delightful blog from the newest member of the Lemon Difficult Team Leo Doulton, our Associate Creative Director. It’s great to have him on board ~ L.

May I Sit Here?

About nine months ago, I was tagged in a review of Locksmith’s Dream by Anna James.

She’d thought it might be of interest to me and some other interactive immersive theatre makers, and it was. The idea of holding an interactive immersive audience for 24 hours was exciting, while I was intrigued by the descriptions of how it veered between interactive immersive theatre, escape room, live video game, and luxury dining experience. But when I read the article, one line in particular stood out to me. That the team was planning a Lovecraft-inspired experience. I commented on Anna’s Twitter post (it was still Twitter then!). At which point, unexpectedly, one of the makers of the show replied to me and suggested we meet for coffee.

A few days later, I sprinted to said coffee from an opera rehearsal, and that’s how I met Ivan, the founder of Lemon Difficult, and Creative Director of The Key of Dreams. It turned out we had a lot in common - a complex love of Lovecraft, a fascination with what interactive experiences could be, and a shared commitment that anything of this kind has to serve its audience.

According to the conductor of said opera rehearsals, we were talking very loudly in the cafe. I am afraid to say that we have spent a lot of time talking loudly and enthusiastically since.

Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time chatting to Ivan, Laura, and the whole The Key of Dreams team, first just following up on topics from the conversation (ways to build characters for interaction, Ivan’s vision for The Key of Dreams, certain very nerdy bits of content), then as a consultant, then as a guest at Locksmith’s Dream, leading a rather bizarre workshop with the whole cast (featuring me and two logs as the star speakers), and lastly as Associate Creative Director for The Key of Dreams, including making my own sub-project Into the Dreamlands.

My job’s a delightful mix of chatting to understand the goals, coming up with my own ideas, and coordinating with the many experts on the project, from discussing how to make a multi-layered musical puzzle with puzzler extraordinaire Sarah Binney, to working out how a trifle could be used to not just represent a story, but to push one forwards with our chefs Dom Zeal and Annaliese Taggart.

What do I offer?

1. Excellent hair. I mean, just look at it.

2. A decade of experience working in the arts as a director, writer, and dramaturge* in opera, Shakespeare, and interactive theatre. Plus also a bit of comedy, which is the root of my constant desire for the audience to get something out of the show. Together, this means I can sometimes ask the right (if occasionally rather pretentious) questions, like “but diegetically, can we determine that aspect of the audience experience within a Lovecraftian structure?”

3. A sounding board. This is a team of keen beans, and we all have a habit of leaping out of bed, screaming ‘Eureka!’, and then trying to work out whether it’s useful, possible, or merely incredibly cool to have a bluetooth-enabled sausage roll that can help you solve puzzles if you sacrifice it to Yog-Sothoth.

This is an incredibly fun job to have, unlike anything I’ve worked on before. At some point, you’re hopefully going to come and see what we’ve made together. But until then, I’ll look forward to sharing a bit more of what’s going on behind the scenes.

*Something between an expert in dramatic structure and theory, a historical consultant, and a ‘show doctor’ who comes in to suggest how you might shape a show, character, or other part of it to make it achieve your goals.