Rear Windows – smashing windows and creating new theatrical possibilities (Big Telly online until Sunday 5 November) #biaf23

The Rear Windows company are keeping rather too close an eye on how their products are performing in people’s homes. Perhaps looking through them more than they’re looking at them. But when they can’t get to the bottom of why windows are being continually smashed, the new temps – us in the audience – join the regular staff to investigate.

The interactive and immersive experience uses Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 similarly titled thriller Rear Window as its jumping off point. Aficionados may spot some of the minor characters getting an extended life in Big Telly’s new work.

Beginning in Zoom, the audience then click through to a virtual environment where we can wander around the various rooms looking for clues. There’s a shifty creative guy who’s been made redundant as his job has been replaced with AI. Wonder what we’ll find in his flat …

The virtual world is populated with assets that were derived from public engagement workshops. There’s lots to explore once the navigation system has been mastered. Gluing together these different collaborative technologies – Zoom is fairly industrialised, but the virtual environment is a playful platform – is both experimental and bleeding edge. The cast demonstrate good improv skills while compensating for the odd technology fail and dealing with audience members’ random answers to the questions they throw out.

While I’m not sure I grasped every detail of the story, the scripted elements were engaging and the whole thing made me grin. The themes of surveillance and automation were contemporary and well considered. Online theatre has come a long way since the beginning of Covid. It’s great to see that the sector is continuing to innovate and find new ways of exploring old and new stories. Good theatre can overcome a lack of polish and the increased risk that comes from having so many moving parts. And it’s encouraging to see new performers getting experience of how to perform remotely.

The final performances of Rear Windows are on Saturday 4 November at 8pmo and Sunday 5 at 2pm and 4pm as part of Belfast International Arts Festival.