In A Heartbeat review

What are memories? What becomes of them as we - and the people with whom we’ve shared them with - begin to get older, frailer and eventually die? Barking Spider Visual Theatre specialise in creating unique experiences for audiences through immersive and interactive storytelling and with In A Heartbeat, the company allows us to take a heart warming visit to the years gone by.

We are greeted by a flurry of excitable hosts (Ashleigh Gray, Emma Telford, Jaime Chapman, Rachel Duffy, Laura Aldous and Chloe Smith) who guide us to one of five tables that are adorned with teacups, hot tea and an assortment of homemade biscuits and sweets. The women wear colourful patterned skirts with aprons tied around their waists, bright blouses and various pieces of jewellery, reminiscent of your stereotypical 1950s fashion.

One Suitcase: Four Stories review

In Italian culture, family and close friends always enter the house from the back door. The thinking behind this being that the back door leads to the kitchen and the kitchen is where everything happens. So, in Barking Spider Visual Theatre's latest production, One Suitcase: Four Stories, it's only fitting that we are taken round the Northcote Town Hall and enter from the back entrance.

Our host, Linda Catalano, welcomes us with open arms into her 'kitchen', and by looking at the set design by Tristan Shelley, you would think it was a real kitchen that has been in use for years and filled with many stories to tell. We take our seat at one of the five dinner tables with six other people and immediately, we all have a sense of familiarity with each other and conversation and jokes flow. Such is the power of good food! 

Psychopomp & Seething review

Barking Spider Visual Theatre has consistently created shows and performances that have a lingering effect on their audiences. Collaborating with MUST (Monash Uni Student Theatre), their newest production Psychopomp & Seething delivers on this reputation yet again. In two short pieces, they transport the audience to two very different dream-like worlds that are paradoxically calming yet unsettling.

The audience seating area has been specifically designed for this show and only seats twenty people in its very intimate structure. As we take our seats, the doors close in on the stage, boxing us in, and we begin to move. Yes, the seating bank moves. With nothing but a blue spotlight sporadically shining above us, I get images of the boat ride in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the hurricane from The Wizard of Oz, which is fitting as this is the type of intriguing experience I’ve come to expect from Barking Spider.