The Immersive Storytelling Studio at the National Theater in London is using virtual and augmented reality to bring a miniature musical to viewers’ homes. It’s one of several high-tech British projects pushing dramatic boundaries. The studio’s first production, ‘Fabulous Wonder.land’, was a VR music video. The team has since made 360-degree films of live shows, developed a one-on-one piece in which an audience member interacts with a live actor while wearing a VR headset and created a mixed-reality exhibition about government welfare cuts.
‘All Kinds of Limbo’ came into being in 2019 after the National Theater had a hit with ‘Small Island’, a play about postwar Jamaican immigration to Britain. Experts created a 10-minute song sequence responding freely to the play’s themes. It was written, performed and motion-captured that year, and was initially presented as a VR experience in one of the theater’s event spaces. Due to the pandemic ‘All Kinds of Limbo’ became an at-home experience. The retooled version can be watched via AR on a mobile device, via a VR headset, or on a regular computer.
More information: