Liverpool Sound & Vision Rating: * * * * *

Cast: Emma Gibson, Gideon Turner.

The Unity Theatre is attracting more and more exciting new projects and bringing incredible talent into the city. It has showcased not only art installations, but hip-hop, performance poetry and multi media. It has produced such a variety of different approaches to theatre that its latest arrival in Unity One fits in perfectly with the ethos of the theatre.

The play is set in 2038 after the beginning of the Sixth Great Extinction and husband and wife Michael and Carys, both scientists, find themselves living on either side of the Atlantic. They are not only separated by distance but by their own differing attitudes to how the world can be saved for future generations, including their own son. The play explores the most pressing and crucial issues of contemporary global life – the consequences of climate change and the possible ramifications of genetic modification.

Philadelphia based theatre group Tiny Dynamite have teamed up with U.K. based theatre and film company Pursued By A Bear in a pioneering new show –The Lamellar Project. This is a transmedia show, performed in front of a live audience in person and via Skype with two actors. The actor the audience sees on the video screen is Emma Gibson, and extraordinarily she is live from Philadelphia, leaving Gideon Turner as the husband left behind in his lab.

Clever design of the set by Cecile Tremolieres means that set and video became one – essentially a box designed as a lab for Michael and with the back wall used as a video screen for when Carys calls. There are breaks in the interaction where pre prepared videos are shown, giving information about the development of The Lamellar Project, the box shape allows the images to have a wrap around effect focusing the audiences eyes on the images.

This is an interesting way of exploring theatre and how audiences engage with what is going on around them. Not only are they visually moved, but the use of sound effects as well as the live interaction on screen makes the audience feel as if they are part of the story. An incredible amount of work has been created to produce an engaging script, clever set design and two astonishing actors who come together from over three thousand miles.

The Lamellar Project is ambitious, engaging and very exciting storytelling and has added many components to produce a unique and entertaining show.

Janie Phillips