Last week our year 12 and 13 drama and theatre students immersed themselves in Punchdrunk’s latest production – The Burnt City.

Punchdrunk specialise in immersive theatrical experiences that encourage their audiences to find their own path through the stories unfolding; merging classic text and a physical theatre approach; audiences are treated to unique experiences when visiting their shows.

The Burnt City tells the story of the fall of Troy through a series of 70 rooms, some inhabited by actors, some simply there to be explored by the audience.

On arrival our group was split into smaller groups and sent off to explore the streets of Troy. We were each given a mask – intended to enhance the unique experience you get from watching a Punchdrunk show.

Our students were fascinated by the enormity of the design work that had gone into the show and loved the physical storytelling that followed. It is rare to find a production that breaks down so many conventions of theatre and experiencing this will provide our students with a whole new way of thinking about theatre and the nature of interacting with an audience.

The students were impeccably behaved as you would expect from any Bushey Meads students on a school trip and they have benefitted from this exciting experience. We are very grateful to all the parents, our trips team and Punchdrunk who have enabled us to get so many of our students to such a valuable and rare production so early in the school year. It is not easy ensuring all safety procedures are in place to make a trip run smoothly. It will be the first of many theatre trips this year and if this was anything to go by, they will be hugely enjoyable experiences for the staff and the students.