[Event Review] Lights Out (2021)

Part of London Horror Festival at The Pleasance Theatre, Lights Out was a Merely Roleplayers and Blackshaw Theatre Company co-production inspired by the game Ten Candles.

Described as, “Part séance, part crime reconstruction, part roleplaying game”, Lights Out used the very clever method of drawing tarot cards to determine the fate of the actors as they reconstructed what may have happened on the mysterious night when the ‘Blackout Four’ disappeared, whilst on a commute of the Northern Line in London, leaving no trace.

The performance was guided by Matt Bootham, host of the Merely Roleplayers podcast, who remained eerily calm as he described what the characters saw and heard in the environment around them. As he kept reminding those playing, and the audience, we don’t know what happened to the ‘Blackout Four’ that night, but the fate of the shuffled tarot deck may be able to reveal the consequences of their predicted actions.

The show itself was introduced with the promise that no person shall survive, that everyone’s candle would be snuffed by the end. As someone who plays a lot of Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs in their spare time, I found this concept thrilling, the idea that no matter how the four played, their fate was ultimately sealed, gave me ideas for my own campaigns that I plan to run in the future. The only problem with acting out the show in this way, was that the tarot was often drawn, completely by luck, in their favour. As the minutes rolled by, another tarot suit would be claimed by the darkness, meaning that if drawn, their actions could have dire consequences, and yet the players kept getting cards that meant they survived right until the very end. This slightly anti-climactic conclusion made the show’s overall narrative fall a little flat; I was hoping for each person to receive their own bespoke demise, only to have three of the four survivors fall into a pit of jawed worms as the evening ended. This, as I have mentioned above, was purely by chance;  shows such as this are mainly improv, a response to the completely random deck of cards that give prompts to the host.

The subject of the ‘big bad’ in this show is a little obscure. As we were consistently reminded, no one knows what actually happened to the ‘Blackout Four’ but the host seemed to have decided that the only logical solution was that giant otherworldly worms took over the tunnels of the Northern Line. It partially reminded me of a certain film that ends with a creature under a ‘haunted church’ that the protagonists accidentally crawl inside and end up being digested by (I won’t spoil which movie this is as this basically ruins the entire plot of it, but fans who have seen it will know exactly what I’m talking about). A wild assumption for this stage production to take when it’s supposed to be cloaked in mystery, I found myself having to ignore the logic and go along for the ride, just like the worms seemed to as they glided through the passageways, leaving electro-conductive goo in their wake. 

Every actor on stage worked with the material they had to the best of their ability, forming well rounded people that were both entertaining and relatable. Natalie Winter portrayed a flustering TFL worker, new to her job, who was just trying to figure out what the hell was going on in her workplace, and who was incredibly helpful with the seemingly infinite tools she was able to provide. One to mention is the wire cutters that sliced through a moving membrane wall and got all the players inside a worm!

Alexander Pankhurst was the comic relief as a banker coming home from a few drinks, pizza in lap. His slightly oblivious nature made him an easy target for death, and yet he just kept pulling cards that were in his favour…

Helen Stratton as the ghost hunting student was certainly the character that I would have been in this situation. A little too curious for her own good, she found herself dodging death more than once, but was ultimately ended by the electrocuting door, a death I don’t think she deserved (being digested by that big worm would have been much more appropriate for her).

Finally, Richard Stratton as a writer for the Metro who was sick of covering travel stories was everything I dislike in journalists which made the character very entertaining to watch. Leaping over giant holes in the ground, getting covered in goo and eventually having the disappointment of his story dying with him (he didn’t have a strong enough throwing arm to save that notebook), I feel the death he received was the most appropriate for him.

The highlight of reviewing this show-meets-gameplay is that I can spoil exactly what happened without the guilt of ruining it for potential future audiences. If this production was put on again, the tarot that decided their fate could be completely different, meaning that the characters would face altered levels of jeopardy and possibly even a new monster. This is a great concept for a show that fans could revisit again and again, its just a shame that the turning of the cards didn’t lead to more horror this time around.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---