Flabbergast Theatre Presents THE SWELL MOB

Flabbergast Theatre, are the creators of; Boris & Sergey: puppetry's Balkan bad boys and "the greatest vaudevillian double act ever conceived for the small stage" Tatterdemalion, the award winning puppetry, physical comedy, and mime performance and Skrimshanks the bizarre buffoon immersive theatre Fringe hit.

Now they bring their award winning 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit to London for a three month run at the COLAB Factory, London Bridge.

Flabbergast presents their newest and perhaps their boldest creation to date - an explosive immersive theatrical experience, as dark as it is fun. They bring you; The Swell Mob.

"Who would suppose, for example, that those young men at the corner, dressed in the height of the Cockney fashion, bedizened with mosaic jewellery, and puffing their cigars, are members of the swell mob - thieves, in short, and pickpockets?" (From The World of London, by John Murray, in Blackwoods Magazine, August 1841)

Audiences are invited to dress up to the nines and submerge themselves in the delights of an 1800s tap-room, to dance, sing, gamble, and cheat their way through a decaying world. Swig a London Porter and become the Hero, or swill Bathtub Gin and relish in the carousel.

Award-winning Clown, Puppetry and Cabaret combine to create a murky world of dandies and deception, in this delightful, provocative and utterly immersive theatre experience.

"Audiences enter a phantasmagorical Victorian Saloon populated by a cast of gothic grotesques wheeler dealers, divas, harlots and mystics. As the evening wears on you may - more likely will be approached by a ne'er-do-well, engaged in a conversation, offered a top or charged with a task and then dispatched to do their bidding. Suffice to day the more you invest in their world, the more you will get out of it. So intriguing and intoxicating is The Swell Mob's brew that audience members are easily hooked into the Hurly Bury and the room escalates in pitch and intensity until the entire cast are whipped up into an amorphous maelstrom of movement before being sucked through one of the portals to who knows what realm from which they appeared" êêêêThe Scotsman

Visitors to the Swell Mob will find themselves transported into its very world; the atmosphere of baccalaurean debauchery will be tangible. A faithful recreation of the historical epoch; thieves, gonophs and fogle-hunters, expert and respectable in their appearance, commence their skin and sneezer (purse and snuff-box) flimping. A lady's reticule, a gentleman's watch, or a child's necklace is readily taken by the flimper, who, behind others, watches for his opportunity to snatch it away. As they speedily move off in various directions to meet at some appointed place, they leave the object of their plunder in a state of perfect wonder and astonishment, if not of momentary stupor.

"There is no escape, you can't sit quietly and watch, you are in there with the sounds, smells & excitement". UK Theatre Web

"Flabbergast Theatre's performance is an immersive delve into a world long gone where the right questions will get the right answers You're encouraged to interact with any and all of the roaming cast. When you do you'll often hear their story of how they came to be there, snippets of these stories hinting at a bigger backstory to be uncovered. Some of the characters appear on stage with typically Vaudevillian acts but the real magic lies in speaking to them as they go about their evening". The Skinny

It's rare to find shows that really commit to blurring the lines between audience and performer, making you forget you're watching a show altogether, as they transport your imagination to another dimension. At times, you can feel a little in the dark, but delve deeper, and you will find that everybody has a story to tell, even if those stories do come at a price. Three Weeks

"This kind of thing is tailor-made for the adventurous viewer. The more you put into it, the more you'll enjoy the experience I love this! It's one of the most exciting shows I've ever seen". Bouquets and Brickbats

A lot of productions claim to be immersive theatre and maybe they involve a bit of walking about in the venue to follow the story. Or they boast a nicely dressed set and a surround sound soundscape. Very few pieces of immersive theatre are genuinely that - and leave each audience member with their own unique version of events. But Flabbergast Theatre, with The Swell Mob, have done that with enough bells and whistles to content many a cynical heart. The Wee Review

SO, what are you waiting for? Come submerge yourself in an unforgettable immersive adventure where the story is only just beginning.

£26 (£20 early bird tickets available for a short time)

£16 Previews

Times

7:00pm (Thursday to Sunday)

8:45pm (Thursday to Saturday)

Running Time

75 mins

Bookings Website:

www.TheSwellMob.com

0333 666 33 66 (Ticketsource box office - calls cost the same as 01 and 02 numbers. Bookings via telephone incur an additional £1.75 per booking)

To post a comment, you must register and login.