The Battle of Waterloo
This was the first time I had travelled across borough borders to this fairly new theatre venue, The Glitch. Head down, hood up, bent at the waist, shoulders folded in, I pushed through the wind, sleet and rain while counting the bodies scattered around Lower Marsh; were they friend or foe? Some were dead to the world, some groaned, others pleaded silently with an outstretched hand. I could see the glow of a bar and quickened my pace until I reached safety. My name was on the list and I was ready to do battle at Jorvik, writes Michael Holland.
We marched in to music that would carry us along fjords and across seas, Drums like thunder powered up our hearts. Tribal chants prepared us to fight.
Yorvik is an interactive and completely immersive play by Charlie Blanchard that tells the tale of Viking conquerors overcoming the Saxons and creating their own capital city (York) in England, a tale that would have been told around a campfire while mead was drunk in great quantities. Blanchard and Oliver Strong summon up that scenario with words to concoct images and sounds and the smell of blood in our minds. In a basement in Waterloo.
Between this pair of intrepid warriors they magic up fights to the death, heads being lopped off, ghosts from the past and visions of the future. This deadly duo – along with as many of the audience that they tempt into their world of war – begin with a slow and arduous row across the treacherous North Sea in a longboat I wouldn’t want to take out on a boating lake; someone is assigned as the Mead Carrier, as the Queen of Sweden, as a high up from Denmark; we all become Saxons losing the battle and then Vikings conquering all. As one we sang, we toasted heroes, we chanted and stamped our feet and became ghosts when instructed.
For an hour we became warriors. For sixty minutes we picked up our swords and laid down our lives for Ragnar and his sons. We saw heroes die and legends being made. We all wanted to reach Valhalla and feast with Odin.
And then it ended as suddenly as it began and, dreamlike, we marched single-file back up the stairs and returned to the 21st century.
The Glitch, 134 Lower Marsh, SE1 7AE until 9th February.
Booking and full details: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/vaultcreativearts/1935007
