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Immersive Hotel Play ‘I Do’ Returns for Barbican’s Scene Change

Early notices highlight inventive voyeurism alongside discomfort with cramped hotel logistics.

Overview

  • Dante or Die’s site-specific production is running inside six rooms at the Malmaison hotel in Smithfield as part of the Barbican’s Scene Change season.
  • Audience members move in small groups to watch interlocking pre-wedding vignettes from different perspectives in a non-linear structure.
  • Critics praise the show’s detailed staging, intimate performances and the clever device that ‘rewinds’ action as groups rotate between rooms.
  • Other reviewers report narrative thinness and an uncomfortable closeness to actors, compounded by crowded corridors and usher-led herding.
  • Created by Daphna Attias and Terry O’Donovan with writer Chloë Moss, the 2013 hotel-set hit runs in London until 8 February before scheduled transfers to Malmaison venues in Manchester and Reading.