9 hours Ago By Claire Moses and Kate Christobek
Immersive theatre productions are taking jury service, which most consider a burden to be avoided at all costs, and packaging it as entertainment. In a small, brightly lit conference room tucked in the corner of a London office building, a dozen people are hunched over computers, printouts and large Ziploc bags of evidence. The whiteboard on the wall behind them is a colourful maze of notes, names and theories.
This group – this jury – is trying to determine whether a man is guilty of arson and murder. In about 70 minutes, they will decide if he will walk free or face decades in prison. But this is not a real jury with the power to convict a real person.
Rather, these jurors – groups of friends, couples on dates – have each paid £46.50, or about US$81, to spend an evening in this room, scrutinising evidence, reviewing video testimony and deliberating to reach consensus on a verdict. This is Jury Games , one of several immersive theatre productions that are taking jury service – still widely “regarded as a disagreeable burden to be avoided so far as possible,” as The New York Times put it in 1887 – and repackaging it as entertainment.
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