Otto receives a photo on his phone one morn­ing. It’s of the house he and his fam­ily moved to when he was around 13. The house where some­thing nasty lived in the walls and came out to play…

This is a myth­ic­al story about a troll (both defin­i­tions) trans­planted to New Zea­l­and in the early days of the Inter­net. We find out about Otto’s (Ral­ph McCub­bin How­ell) favour­ite chat room, his intim­id­at­ing Nana, his new school and which sub­ject he dreads. The themes that thread through the script are pretty heavy – anxi­et­ies, depres­sion, nat­ur­al dis­asters, mor­tal­ity, and intergen­er­a­tion­al fam­ily rela­tion­ships – and Trick of the Light Theatre handle them deftly. There’s a grow­ing sense of men­ace through the play that nev­er becomes over­whelm­ing. Using pro­ject­ors, mobile phones, pup­pets and shad­ow play makes the space feel expans­ive while isol­at­ing McCub­bin How­ell (even though he’s joined on stage by Han­nah Smith). Smith per­forms vari­ous char­ac­ters as well as oper­ates the lights. She’s so calm and col­lec­ted it’s a fun coun­ter­point to the some­times fright­en­ing sound design by Tane Upjohn-Beat­son. Dir­ect­or Char­lotte Brad­ley is the final mem­ber of the team to bring us this invent­ive show.

Con­tent note: The show includes men­tions of men­tal health and earth­quakes.

  • Troll on at BATS Theatre to 7 April 2018