Container at New Diorama Theatre

The last time I visited New Diorama Theatre for a Cog Night it was one of the most puzzling yet hilarious pieces of theatre I’d ever seen. It Don’t Worry Me was very meta and ended with partial nudity (you can read my colleague Laura’s excellent attempt to make sense of that show here). So as we walked down Euston Road on an early April evening I was excited to see what was in store on this visit.

I had been a vocal advocate for picking Container for our April Cog Night. The hard to pin down show drew influence from Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley and Phillip Glass to tackle the issues of “climate catastrophe and displacement, violent conflict, and mounting crises”. The premise drew me in like the sucker for avant-garde music/theatre/performance crossover that I’m more than willing to admit I am.

That said I’ll try my best to leave my contemporary music degree at the door and not ramble about this brilliantly bizarre show in overly academic terms.

New Diorama Theatre feels like a magical space – nestled among the shining new glass blocks of Euston Road but home to radical new theatre.

I love the use of temporary tickets that are reused, the welcoming bar space and a genuine commitment to all forms of inclusivity.

So what about the show we went to see? Well if I had to try and describe it in one sentence I’d go for:

Which is a lot of word salad that I don’t think helps describe it any better. If I’m honest.

So maybe I’ll start with some basics:

There were 5 performers -Alan Fielden, Jemima Yong, Clara Potter-Sweet, Ben Kulvichit and Tim Cape.

Sometimes they spoke, sometimes they chanted, sometimes they played instruments and sometimes they sang.

At one point most of them walked off the stage whilst still miked up. This section was perhaps the weakest part of the show for me.

The central story (in some shape) of Container slowly emerged in fragments around a horrific tale of people smuggling. But like trying to consume any serious news these days this was buried amongst banal stories, constant distractions, gossip and noise. The performance felt like living inside a scrolling modern social media platform.

The ‘Container’ was a shipping container which revolutionised shipping, or maybe it was a box of taxidermy mice, maybe it was us, or the theatre. Maybe it was the body – a container of the multiplicity of being a human today. I’m still not sure (and not sure that it really matters in the long run).

As words and phrases shifted and overlapped and became meaningless rhythms and then shifted back to words the performers of Container kept us rapt and engaged in a state of concentrated listening.

They were excellent, tight and slick despite this night being the first of the run. And the show moved seamlessly between sections which this type of theatre often fails to manage.

I didn’t come away with a clear description of what I’d just seen, or any kind of explanation. But I was moved, and that’s what the best experimental art, poetry or theatre does. It opens a door into your own mind and makes you see the same things in a new way.

Container was a New Diorama Theatre from the 2-12 April 2025.

Illustration by Poan Pan for our Cultural Calendar.