We’ve all had ter­rible Zoom calls over lock­down. Night­mar­ish ones, per­haps. How­ever, they’ve nev­er been quite as deadly as this.

Trick of the Light Theatre’s (via Circa Theatre) work It’s Behind You! is a piece of digit­al theatre born out of the COVID-19 lock­down. First per­formed live online on 28 May, and avail­able until 30 July 2020 to watch online, this work brings togeth­er four friends on a tem­pes­tu­ous Zoom call, and the mon­ster that’s stalk­ing them.

Chris (Chris Park­er) is def­in­itely not break­ing lock­down rules, Andrew (Andrew Pat­ter­son) is trapped in his house with Simon (Simon Leary) who is very attached to him, and Car­rie (Car­rie Green) is just home from her essen­tial work as a clown doc­tor. Over twenty-five minutes, the friends banter, argue, and point fin­gers at each oth­er for break­ing the lock­down rules – then, inev­it­ably, get killed by a mon­ster (Bryn­ley Stent). It’s behind you, indeed.

The per­form­ances are very strong and fun, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing that the whole thing was done live. While all these per­formers are stage act­ors, there’s anoth­er level to digit­al theatre – the fact that the inter­net often breaks for no reas­on  – and per­form­ing live whilst hav­ing to be con­scious of film­ing one­self, as well as deal­ing with oth­er tech issues per­son­ally is quite the feat. A show like this feels oddly intim­ate too, as the audi­ence we’re right in with the action, riff­ing with the friends, poten­tially the mon­ster­’s next prey. The entire piece is very slick and well-made, and def­in­itely is a fant­ast­ic example of what future digit­al work could be.

How­ever, I won­der if this work could­n’t have come a little earli­er in our lock­down. I’m very aware of the intense tech­no­lo­gic­al under­tak­ing it would have taken – and it was very impress­ively done – but the piece does­n’t quite fit our Level 2 status right now. It’s the sort of work that could stand as a cul­tur­al mark­er – a sign of our times, as it were – and would have been very scary had it been played dur­ing Level 4, but it does­n’t quite have the same ring to it now that we’re all mostly free to leave our houses and see each oth­er in per­son.

Regard­ing that, though, the show itself is very fun – albeit per­haps not some­thing that will age espe­cially well – and def­in­itely worth check­ing out online.

Buy your tick­ets to view the show here!