If you’ve ever wanted to get into the Tower of London after dark, then Anagram’s cunning and enjoyable headphones show is the way to do it. It takes each member of the audience on a lonely solo journey around some of the most infamous parts of the Tower, including Traitors’ Gate and the Salt tower – where the etchings of Roman Catholic dissidents made during Elizabeth I’s reign still mark the walls – immersing us in a dislocating, shadowy world of espionage and surveillance. You never know quite who to believe and trust.
There is a moment when you find yourself standing on the medieval stone battlements, staring across the river to the 21st-century glass castles on the opposite bank. We already know that the Tower is a place of secrets, stories and lies, but are those soaring glass structures, from which London is governed and which house the headquarters of international corporations, as transparent as they appear?
Anagram constantly make you question the veracity of memory, and show how easily we can be manipulated by the silky, apparently trustworthy voice whispering in our ear. They make you question the way we so casually pass on our private information.
At times, you can’t quite escape the feeling that Nightwatchers is a glorified alternative version of the traditional audio guide. But the show uses the backdrop of the Tower and the river like a grand stage and to clever effect. It’s crisply written, and as events unfold it takes on a strongly subversive edge, prodding at issues of appearance and reality. It draws subtle parallels between the dirty tricks of the Elizabethan secret service, and its attempts to protect the realm from those it considered terrorists, and the actions of our own 21st-century spooks. As with Wildworks’ Enchanted Palace, it’s a fruitful, sometimes beguiling dialogue between old buildings and new theatre.
- At the Tower of London until 20 February. Box office: 0844-482 7799.
