Theatre review: Pioneer

Last year The Kindness of Strangers garnered less praise from me than it did from most people - although that's not because I disliked it as such, but because it gave me motion sickness. With Shoreditch Town Hall seeming more likely to stay still for 80 minutes than the back of an ambulance, I decided to give Curious Directive another go, with a (hopefully less queasy) trip to their 2014 Fringe First winner, Pioneer. It's 2029*, eight years after an initial mission to send astronauts to Mars ended in disaster, and now a new crew is being sent up amid much publicity. What the public doesn't know is that in the intervening years a top-secret mission has sent a Dutch couple to the planet, and their successful survival has made NASA confident enough to go public with the latest attempt. As they await the new arrivals though, one of the astronauts disappears while carrying out routine repairs. Left alone with just her fears and the ship's computer, his partner Imke (Flora Denman) starts to crack.

Theatre review: The Kindness of Strangers

A different kind of immersive theatre at - or rather near - Southwark Playhouse, where we're immersed not just in the situation but in the neighbourhood as well. curious directive's The Kindness of Strangers takes place in the back of an ambulance that sets off from behind the theatre and drives around the local area, simulating the night shift of a King's College Hospital ambulance crew. There's only space for five audience members per performance, all wearing headphones through which we hear the unseen driver Sylvia, who's on her last-ever shift. In the back with us is Lisa (Emily Lloyd-Saini,) who's on her first. As they wait to be called out, the two women discuss their very different points of view on the NHS - Lisa has an optimism that they can still do good, but while Sylvia seems to be cynical about the "dying beast" they work in, she's leaving to take a job leading the ambulance trust, in the belief that she can improve things.