Premiere of extended reality performance by Carl Miller opens at Watershed Bristol

Carl Miller’s 'Is It Any Stranger' will play at Watershed on the 23 and 24 February 2024 in a limited run of free-to-book previews.

Memories surface in unexpected ways as you encounter a stranger’s story of love, loss, and longing in this new piece of live performance augmented with extended reality technology. One actor performs in the public spaces of Watershed as two audience members follow in their footsteps. Each audience member wears headphones, through which they can hear the actor speaking live, and caption glasses, through which they can view the actor, the world around them, and projected captions. By mediating the promenade performance through inobtrusive equipment designed for accessibility, Miller produces an intimate and immediate exploration of grief.

Carl Miller’s plays have been commissioned and produced by theatres all over England and around the world, including the National Theatre in London. He has recently begun creating immersive work combining live performance with new technologies, notably Frankenstein for the National Youth Theatre in 2019. He developed Is it any stranger alongside Max Mason as part of the MA Virtual and Extended Realities at UWE Bristol.

Performing in repertoire are:

Kirris Riviere
Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Theatre includes If You Fall (UK Tour), The Nutcracker (Bristol Old Vic), Playmas (Orange Tree Theatre, London), Clockwork Orange (Theatre Royal Stratford East, London), Macbeth, A View from the Bridge, Jollity Farm, Huckleberry Finn and Ones Head Is Ones Creator (Tobacco Factory, Bristol), Tracy Beaker Gets Real (Nottingham Playhouse) and Comedy of Errors (Royal Shakespeare Company).

Film includes I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, RED 2, The Truth about Love and Welcome to Karachi. Television includes The Sandman, Manhunt, Hollyoaks, Casualty, Little Britain, Five Daughters, NY-LON, Above Suspicion and Mount Pleasant.

Heather Williams
Theatre includes If You Fall (UK Tour), Up the Feeder Down the Mouth, Suspension, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, An Enemy of the People, I Can Give You a Good Time, Blithe Spirit, Dick Whittington, Epsom Downs, Lovers, Under Milk Wood, Yerma (Bristol Old Vic), The Love I Feel Is Red, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Place at the Bridge, House of Letitia Smith and Our Country’s Good (Tobacco Factory, Bristol), Up Down Boy (Salisbury Playhouse, UK Tour), Funny Peculiar (UK Tour), Godspell (Perth Theatre), Hobson’s Choice (West Yorkshire Playhouse), One for the Road (York Theatre Royal) and School for Clowns, Wedding on the Eiffel Tower (Theatre Powys). 

Film includes Whale Music, A Little Like Drowning and Truly Madly Deeply.

Television includes Coronation Street, The House of Elliott, Casualty, Play School, Play Away, Grange Hill, Grandpa in My Pocket and The Decent Thing.

Free previews will run from 11:00-19:15 on Friday 23 February and Saturday 24 February 2024 at Watershed Bristol. The venue and performance are wheelchair
accessible. Tickets are available at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/is-it-any-stranger-tickets837519622737. 

For more information and to book press tickets, please email theextendedexperiencecompany@gmail.com.