It’s quite a journey from truth to disinformation and you’ll need to take the bus from Canada Water station to Deptford, South East London to get there.
Among a mix of local authority and new builds you’ll see a big old rusty gate through which, up a long path through weeds (the real thing, not artfully placed prairie grasses), you’ll reach a nondescript warehouse.
STOREHOUSE London
There are lockers and a loo before you go in, it’s a 90 minute experience and you’ll be standing, walking or climbing steps most of the time.
You’ll be assigned a Pod number and to reach it you’ll weave through up-ended tubes of printing paper, an echo of the site’s past as a paper store for newspapers. There’s a welcome drink and then you’ll be inducted as a ‘Trustee’. Your mission ‘to act in the best interest of the mission and those it serves’. Really, it’s about questioning notions of truth.
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- STOREHOUSE, London
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- in search of the truth…
Out of the Pod and into a time capsule, it’s the 1980s – pop music, vibrant colour and the birth of the Internet. Since 1983, STOREHOUSE employees have been secretly collecting posts, videos, comments and all matter of content converting it to binary code and binding into books stacked to be aggregated in a quest for a higher collective wisdom at some point…
The whole media universe back in books again is quite mesmerising. It’s quite a task and the staff have never left the building, kept young by a mycelial network – an interconnected system of fungal threads that functions like an underground web, connecting and facilitating resource sharing and communication.
Where the secret bunker is located is Convoys Wharf in Deptford, which in 2003 was set to be developed into hi-tech office space, focused on the “creative industries”, with 40-storey towers dominating the skyline. That never happened but a creative industry has now popped up – ontological immersive theatre, which creates a deep connection and understanding of the space, its history, and its significance. This was, after all, the place where the tabloid newspapers came from with their lies and titillation.
It’s a jaw-dropping spectacle of sound, light and space reaching up to the zenith before heading into the stunning riverside bar and cafe to discuss what that just meant. The rooms are breathtaking, the detail infinite. Scent in the air, dripping overhead and texture underfoot. A Teasmade, fax machines, rotary phones, mix tapes – it’s museum quality curation.
The premise is that our world is saturated in media and without gatekeepers. The binders and stackers have their jobs to do, focusing various lenses of bias and statistical misrepresentation on all the content that is out there. That the trustees have been invited in means there’s been issues, a missed deadline, and problems which they can’t solve for themselves.
Sage & Jester, founded by Liana Patarkatsishvili is positioned as ‘artistic innovation that transforms how audiences engage with storytelling and the pivotal topic of misinformation’. The clue to what they do is in the name – sage for wisdom and facts, and jester for wit and irreverence. Creative direction is by Sophie Larsmon and production design by Alice Helps and a 40-strong team.
This show has also been designed with access in mind with wonderful Access All Areas designing for disabled and neurodivergent guests – with mystery shoppers to make sure they keep on track.
This isn’t Escape Rooms (or Punchdrunk, yet), so although there’s group solving activity which isn’t quite focused, it’s more of a cerebral pre-bunking of misinformation and disinformation. Think of this as your mild dose of vaccine, inoculating you to develop cognitive antibodies to help you recognise and resist unwanted attempts to influence and mislead.
Be ready to question what you are being told.
I was there for a first preview and it needs a bit of work to tighten up the storytelling, gives too much back story, misdirects on internal politics and grudges with a half-hearted plot but needs the characters to give clearer objectives for the audience. We are shown and told what’s preserved, what’s re-written and what’s being destroyed. The actors and guests will find their stride, culturally, in encouraging participation.
It’s part art installation, part deep dive into the 80s and British pysche around news and causes. It misses the mark on the impact this information has had in the outside world, assumes that we have been thwarted and maybe for legal reasons can’t name names.
It’s a stunning thing to look at and a fascinating concept.
Storehouse is playing at Deptford Storehouse in London from 4 June to 20 September 2025. Opening night is 11 June.
TICKETS: sageandjester.com
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