★★★★★

“thrilling, meticulously choreographed theatre”

“Recollections may vary.” The phrase returns at the beginning of DEEPFAKE, gradually fractured and restructured. It sounds like a disclaimer, but also a warning: if memory can shift and testimony can be reconstructed, what makes an image any more trustworthy? Co-commissioned by Sadler’s Wells Theatre and DanceEast, and created and directed by Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple, the production builds a political thriller around an increasingly uncomfortable television interview.

The stage is strikingly minimal. Green surrounds the playing space in Milla Clarke’s set, immediately establishing it as a site of fabrication rather than a completed fictional world. Once the live camera and Dan Light’s video design enter the equation, that emptiness is transformed. Rebecca Bassett-Graham’s cool-headed journalist Katie Fielding steadily corners Kennedy Muntanga’s Prime Minister as he attempts to explain a mysterious disappearance from Buckingham Palace. Muntanga moves between polished confidence and physical unease with impressive control, while Bassett-Graham gives the interview a precise, increasingly adversarial tension.

The use of live camera on stage is hardly new. What makes the work distinctive is how completely its technology is bound to its dramaturgy. As the Prime Minister reconstructs the missing twenty-four minutes, his live body exists alongside competing screen versions of the past. Recorded bodies appear beside present ones; dancers and digital avatars connect with remarkable precision. Memory becomes less a stable event than material available for editing. At its most visually overwhelming, performers move through six screen-like panels until it becomes difficult to identify where the live body ends and projection begins. Here, technology does not simply illustrate uncertainty; it makes uncertainty physically felt.

This is where the choreography becomes particularly compelling. A theatre audience normally performs its own continuous edit: we decide where to look, whether to focus on a gesture or the entire stage picture. A camera makes those decisions for us. Jess & Morgs place both systems of spectatorship in front of us simultaneously. The camera becomes not simply a witness to choreography, but a choreographic force in its own right. The gimbal operator and green-screen performers remain visible, so even the labour of constructing the illusion becomes part of the choreography. At rare moments, the sheer virtuosity of the screen work risks competing with the emotional stakes of the interview, though the performers quickly pull our attention back.

Jeff James’ writing and dramaturgy keep the production grounded. Political satire, interrogation and absurdity sit alongside one another without collapsing into simple comedy. Voiceover further separates body from statement, so that what we hear, what we see and who appears to be speaking no longer perfectly align. The dancers sustain this instability with exacting physical control, while the central performances prevent the technological apparatus from becoming an end in itself.

The production does not need to tell us that images can lie. Its more unsettling question is how an image comes to feel true in the first place. Its technology is not decoration; it is dramaturgy. By the end, the issue is no longer simply whether a politician is telling the truth, but where spectators are supposed to locate truth at all. Jess & Morgs turn the instability of the image into thrilling, meticulously choreographed theatre.

THE PIED PIPER: A RAT’S TALE

Little Angel Studios

★★★

“an imaginative and well-crafted reinterpretation of a familiar story”

Most audiences already know the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. But what happens if the story is retold from the point of view of those usually described as the problem — the rats themselves? This is the central idea behind Little Angel Theatre’s The Pied Piper: A Rat’s Tale, and it is also the production’s most effective act of adaptation.

The world of the show is established immediately through music. A haunting flute melody, combined with loose robes, waistcoats, head coverings and layers of fabric, creates a culturally hybrid visual style. Rather than presenting a realistic version of medieval Germany, the production builds a timeless folkloric world: a place of travelling musicians, storytellers, markets and old legends. This gives the story an international quality and allows the audience to enter the world quickly without being tied too closely to one historical setting.

The storyteller welcomes the audience warmly and playfully brings the local area into the performance, at one point referring to the market as “Islington”, the neighbourhood in which Little Angel Theatre is based. From there, the story follows Horatio, a young rat who leaves his quiet home by the river in search of excitement. After arriving in “Hamelin” and taking a nap at the market, he is captured by humans, passed off as a replacement puppy and sold to a family. His whirlwind of adventures then sets in motion the events that eventually lead to the familiar story of the Pied Piper.

This shift in perspective is the strongest element of the production. The rats are no longer simply a plague or a comic threat. They become characters with their own motivations, relationships and points of view. The show therefore becomes less a retelling of a famous story and more “the story behind the story”.

The solo performer, Steve Tiplady, handles the different characters with clarity and energy, and the production itself is carefully structured and highly tourable. Some of the most theatrical moments come from changes in scale. Tiny finger puppets are sometimes almost too small for younger audience members to see, but this limitation is later turned into a surprise. A black curtain is lifted to reveal an entire miniature town, with carts moving through the streets and small rats appearing at windows. These changes of perspective are simple, inventive and deeply theatrical.

The ending, however, feels rushed and dramatically less convincing. In attempting to soften the grim ending of the original tale, Horatio ultimately becomes a hero by saving the children, giving the production a more reassuring, family-friendly conclusion. Yet this also raises a more complicated question.

Horatio begins as an ordinary rat who feels overlooked. He leaves home, survives an adventure, saves others, becomes a hero and is finally accepted. The emotional logic therefore risks becoming: you are worthy of love because you have proved yourself exceptional.

For a contemporary children’s audience, this idea of conditional belonging deserves closer examination. Does Horatio really need to become extraordinary in order to deserve acceptance? Perhaps the more interesting question is whether he ever needed to prove his worth at all.

A Rat’s Tale is an imaginative and well-crafted reinterpretation of a familiar story, with strong puppetry, clear storytelling and several beautifully theatrical moments. Its change of perspective feels fresh. Yet by returning to a conventional heroic ending, it loses some of the complexity that the adaptation initially promises.

Tag Archives: Portia Yuran Li

DEEPFAKE

★★★★★

Sadler’s Wells East

DEEPFAKE

Sadler’s Wells East

★★★★★

“thrilling, meticulously choreographed theatre”

DEEPFAKE

Sadler’s Wells East

Reviewed on 1st October 2026

by Portia Yuran Li

Photography by Foteini Christofilopoulou

DEEPFAKE

DEEPFAKE

DEEPFAKE

THE PIED PIPER: A RAT’S TALE

★★★

Little Angel Theatre

THE PIED PIPER: A RAT’S TALE

Little Angel Studios

★★★

“an imaginative and well-crafted reinterpretation of a familiar story”