Sound and Music

Last weekend I went to see It Felt Like a Kiss at the Manchester International Festival. I've heard rumours it might come to London so I won't spoil it by giving details, but I will say it was perhaps the best example of 'promenade' theatre I've experienced.

We arrived at a disused office building in Manchester's Spinningfields district. Surrounded by the kind of sick architecture that has beseiged the post-industrial northern cities. Supposedly a symbol of regeneration these vast glass blocks will stand as a monument to boom-time Britain for some years to come. We stand inline with 8 other people before receiving the house rules from a steward who, maybe because of my hightened sense of anticipation and fear, seemed like Lynchian hotel receptionist. As we travel up the elevator it opens up to pitch black darkness. As your eyes adjust you walk through a Clowns mouth and inside a film. "It is a ghost story where unexpected forces, veiled by the American Dream, come out from the dark to haunt you…"

"It Felt Like a Kiss tells the story of America’s rise to power in the golden age of pop, and the unforeseen consequences it had on the world and in our minds. Beginning in 1959, the show spotlights the dreams and desires that America inspired during the ’60s, when the world began to embrace the country and its culture as never before. But as this daring production unfolds across five floors, blending music with documentary and the disorientating whirl of a fairground ghost train, the audience is forced to face the dark forces that were veiled by the American dream – a dream that ultimately returns to haunt us all."

At the centre of the interactive theatre piece was a 35 minute documentary by Adam Curtis, a documentary film maker, whose work includes The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, The Mayfair Set, Pandora's Box, The Trap and The Living Dead.

Watch the film in full here