There is clearly a huge hunger among audiences for theatrical experiences that allow them to be more than passive spectators. But the interactive theatre show, or one that attempts to disrupt traditional actor/audience relationships, is not necessarily better than sitting in the dark on red velvet seats watching King Lear performed on a cross-arch stage. The interactive show may be different, but that does not make it better.
That is the case with Pub Quiz, a show that is all novelty and very little substance. It begins as you are ushered into a room, sat at a table and introduced to your human mascot. What follows is roughly what you would expect from a pub quiz. A list of questions are read out (for example: Who wrote the play Comedians? Who was in the original line-up of Hear'Say?). The quiz master is, as they always are in pub quizzes, a mixture of the smug and the sadistic. But there is something else going on. The clues in the picture-quiz round all have strong political references, and occasionally a question creeps in that is then hastily scrapped, such as: Which two members of the UN Security Council vetoed any action when Saddam Hussein gassed some of his own people in 1988?
Then it is out of the quiz room and into the theatre, where the mascots of each team become the players in the kind of inane challenge games that feature on Saturday evening TV shows. Meanwhile, the audience fills in a questionnaire that includes statements that must be numbered from one (strongly agree) to five (strongly disagree).
This is all fine and mildly diverting, but the show's political points about spin and public opinion pale into insignificance compared with the daily charade played out in our media of Tony Blair's attempts to win support for a war against Iraq.
There is also something irritating about a show that appears to be interactive but is actually as impervious to the audience as a Noël Coward drama. Nothing we do has any real effect on the action. There is the germ of a good idea here, but it is woefully undeveloped.
· Until March 2. Box office: 020- 7223 2223.
