STOREHOUSE

Deptford Storehouse

★★★½

“a multifaceted and engaging experience”

In a Deptford warehouse that was once the paper store for London’s newspaper industry, Storehouse (created by Liana Patarkatsishvili) is an immersive theatre production that questions the role of the internet and the twenty-four-hour news cycle in shaping our reality and the changing relationship between facts, news, and opinion.

The journey begins outside with a glass of sparkling wine and a paper guide that explains the premise: in 1983, at the birth of the internet, a group of visionaries opened the Storehouse, intending to convert all human data into binary code and which could then be catalogued, with the intention of collating it all on the First of January 2025. This moment, termed the Great Aggregation, would lead to the discovery of a universal, liberatory truth. We enter after the failure of this project.

Sorted into rooms to begin the experience, we are tasked with helping the employees of Storehouse – who have not left since 1983 – resolve the issue and proceed with the Great Aggregation. Passing through the doors into the cavernous warehouse we enter a low, cool space punctuated with columns, and from there into a waiting room. From this point onwards the performance incorporates everything from oaths and discussions to fortune cookies and votes, creating a multifaceted and engaging experience.

The actors we encounter along the way are all excellent. Fully embracing the retro 1980s environment, they walk us through the Storehouse’s collection, assessment and shelving processes while sharing their backstories and professional grievances – and dancing to Karma Chameleon whenever it plays over the Tannoy. Special mention goes to the Zachary Pang who guided our group through the maze of the Storehouse with aplomb. They are supported by a stellar cast of voice actors, that appear in video or audio: Toby Jones, Meera Syal, Kathryn Hunter and Billy Howle.

The sprawling staging (production designer Alice Helps), littered with 80s technology, and overgrown with a mossy, fungal-like substance, transports the audience to a strange – but strangely familiar – world, even down to the level of smells which permeate the rooms, bringing us further into the experience. The clothes (Julie Belinda Landau) are also fantastic, all silk shirts, braces and big shoulder pads, conjuring a moment of time frozen from the recent past.

Without wanting to give too much away, as I think going in cold enhances the experience, the structure of the show reflects its content, with participants invited to interact with one another, before, during and after the performance. There are multiple moments for a complementary drink, and I can say that the non-alcoholic cocktails are amazing. Conversation between strangers is encouraged: ‘a friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face’, as we try together to understand our contemporary reality.

While I felt that the message was not groundbreaking, Storehouse was a very enjoyable and different experience and would be a gripping and provocative way to spend an evening with friends, or indeed to meet new people, re-focusing us on the importance of real-life, interpersonal connections, however fleeting. Ending on the deck of a free bar, looking across the Thames to Canary Wharf, I couldn’t help but think of the relationships between the centres of global economic power and the information ecosystems that help uphold them, Storehouse’s setting offering a final opportunity to consider its message.

STOREHOUSE

Deptford Storehouse

Reviewed on 11th June 2025

by Rob Tomlinson

Photography by Helen Murray

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STOREHOUSE

★★★★

“this is an exciting and stylishly gritty production that does justice to every single story it tells”

In 1880s London, a flea bites a horse that kicks a man, setting off a chain of events that ripples from the boys of the postal service to Queen Victoria herself. Written by James Fritz and directed by Jay Miller, The Flea is an exploration of the threads that run across London, connecting the poor telegraph boy Charlie Swinscow with his mother, with local bad boy Henry Newlove, with Bertie Prince of Wales, and with a queer aristocratic sex ring that will shock the nation. It is not a period piece but a vibrant, vital play that sparks and seethes; an intoxicating production that probes sensitively at the questions at its heart.

Spanning such vast networks, it is remarkably self-assured. Just five cast members share twelve roles between them, and it is a testament to the extremely talented actors that the doubling works as well as it does. We watch Séamus McLean Ross swing effortlessly from the reserved and somewhat listless Charlie Swinscow to the roaring Bertie Prince of Wales, and Norah Lopez Holden is magnetic as the heartbroken seamstress Emily Swinscow, and as Queen Victoria. The highlight is Connor Finch, who delivers nuanced and moving performances as both the bruised, swaggering post office clerk Henry Newlove, and the aristocratic playboy Arthur Somerset, his life and love crumbling before him.

The set, designed by Naomi Kuyck-Cohen, is an unsettling approximation of a Victorian living room, or perhaps a giant mouth, where all the furniture is of an uncertain size, and the cast must clamber up chairs that hang high on the wall, or squeeze themselves into a tiny chaise lounge. This works well alongside the production’s exploration of scale: as we move through the play, it becomes apparent that just about everybody is under the boot of, or looking for the approval of, a higher power. The costumes, designed by Lambdog1066 (with hair and makeup by Dominique Hamilton), are also excellent, traversing the boundary between the ostensibly historical setting and the uncanny, slightly twisted world we find ourselves in. Combined with atmospheric yet subtle sound and lighting design (Josh Anio Grigg and Jonathan Chan respectively) the staging is very versatile, and apt for exploring the play’s sprawling plot.

At times the ambition is too great. It is a testament to Fritz’s writing that no relationship exists in a vacuum, but keeping up with each character’s complex associations and motivations can grow exhausting. Towards the end, the play grows slightly unwieldy and tonally uncertain, carried away by its own potential for vastness. Particularly an extended scene between Queen Victoria and God Himself, while brilliantly delivered, feels unnecessary and distracting. Instead, the play is at its best when it is probing closer to home, managing to pose some incredibly difficult ethical questions without purporting to offer any simple solutions. Ultimately, this is an exciting and stylishly gritty production that does justice to every single story it tells, all the way from the flea through to Queen Victoria.

STOREHOUSE

Deptford Storehouse

★★★½

“a multifaceted and engaging experience”

STOREHOUSE

Deptford Storehouse

Reviewed on 11th June 2025

by Rob Tomlinson

Photography by Helen Murray

Recently reviewed by Rob:

STOREHOUSE

STOREHOUSE

STOREHOUSE

THE FLEA at The Yard Theatre

★★★★

“this is an exciting and stylishly gritty production that does justice to every single story it tells”

THE FLEA at The Yard Theatre

Reviewed on 21st October 2023

by Anna Studsgarth

Photography by Marc Brenner

Links to more of our recent reviews:

The Flea

The Flea

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