Punchdrunk to stage six-hour theatre show for audiences of two

Audiences for a theatre production inspired by Greek tragedy will be limited to two at a time, and the show will last up to six hours, involve lots of standing up and be held in secret venues across London. Bus fares are not included.

While some may not consider that to be an irresistible offer, the demand for tickets to the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk’s new production is expected to far outstrip the limited supply. Punchdrunk announced on Tuesday details of a “theatrical adventure”, a production it says is inspired by the remaining fragments of Aeschylus’s lost play Kabeiroi.

There will be just 864 tickets in total – about 300 fewer than the Olivier theatre at the National can accommodate for a single performance. For anyone who does want a place, it will be pot luck. Punchdrunk said tickets would be available via a ballot, which opened at noon on Tuesday and will close on Sunday 10 September. They will cost £55 and come with a string of conditions.

Applicants must have a companion as it is “a two-person experience” and would be unable to “participate in the experience” on their own. As well as lasting six hours and requiring audiences to stay on their feet for most of that time, Kabeiroi will start early in the afternoon and finish by 10pm, with ticketholders directed to multiple locations across London. Audience members are expected to bring a contactless payment card or a topped-up Oyster card to get from place to place.

The show is for adults only and not suitable for women at any stage of pregnancy, people who are claustrophobic, or anyone of “a nervous disposition”.

Details of what audiences can expect are being kept under wraps although the company has not been afraid to scare the living daylights out of people in previous productions. Its show It Felt Like a Kiss in 2009 had people running for their lives pursued by a masked maniac clutching a chainsaw.

“The cant critical word for this kind of thing is ‘scary’,” wrote the Guardian’s Michael Billington at the time. “But what is the point of simply making people jump out of their skins?”

Professional critics like Billington are not invited to Punchdrunk’s latest “as spaces are extremely limited”, although journalists of course will be able to enter the ballot.

That resonates with the current three-week run of Tom Hiddleston’s Hamlet, a production which also allocated tickets after a lottery and chose not to invite critics. The show is raising money for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Mark Shenton, The Stage’s associate editor and chair of the Critics’ Circle, said he personally would not be shelling out £110 on a six-hour experience by a company which long ago “delighted me enough”.

With the snubbing of critics appearing to become a trend, Shenton asked: “But where will it end? Will theatres like the Donmar, Almeida or National follow suit and expect critics to pay for shows that are certain to sell out anyway?

“A new critical future beckons, but once this disruption takes hold, there’ll be no turning back. Critics are in imminent danger of becoming a thing of the past for the theatre of the future.”

The show and its cloak and dagger nature will be music to the ears of Punchdrunk’s loyal fans, who have been waiting for a new production for some time. The company’s last big show was The Drowned Man: a Hollywood Fable in 2013, staged in a vast former sorting office in Paddington, London.

Punchdrunk said it was “committed to developing new ways to engage with culture” – hence the two-person, six-hour, multiple location experience.

The show, it said, was based on Aeschylus’s ancient Greek tragedy about the women of Lemnos, written between 499 and 456BC. The only inkling of what to expect is a quote: “But I do not treat you as an omen of my journey.” It has also sent journalists a photograph of the British Museum taken, apparently, through the bars of a fence.

All successful ticket bidders will be informed on 13 September and invited to book a time slot on a first come, first served basis.

• Kabeiroi runs in London from 26 September-5 November.