(seen at the performance on 27th January 2026)
For the first time in over 40 years of theatregoing, the monkey viewed the opening scene of a play from inside a walk-in shower stall, shared with three other audience members.
Such are the perils of “site-specific” theatre.
“Dante or Die’s” show, first seen in 2013, is revived and updated by its original team. Set across 6 hotel rooms, in the hour before the wedding of Georgina and Tunde, the audience moves in groups between scenes featuring a dozen celebrants.
We are ghosts in each room. The actors do not acknowledge or interact with us, save to move around where we are standing. For those, like the monkey, who were comfortable taking up the pre-show offer to “sit or stand anywhere – including the corner of the bed” – it is a remarkable experience.
It really does recommend the bed option (except in the ‘Bridesmaid’s and Bride’ room, where it gets exuberant and there are plenty of alternative seats). Even there, from a padded seat close enough to see the phone countdown and results before anyone else, is thrillingly intimate.
Elsewhere, to be on the bed and able to read phone messages on screen, notes jotted on bedside pads and more, all adds a lot to the event.
Split into groups of 12, identified by a coloured rose to be worn at all times, a guide lines us up outside a door, single file in the corridor of the first floor of the hotel.
When “The Cleaner” (Rowena Le Poer Trench) has finished her stylised dusting / housekeeping routine, she turns on her vacuum cleaner. A sign for the guides (lovely Sarah-Jane for the monkey’s “Red Rose” group) to knock on the door and usher us inside.
“Red Rose” is definitely the group to aim for. Although every group experiences the same scenes – designed to be viewed in any order, the monkey did form the impression that some are stronger than others, and felt that the impact of the whole would depend a little on whom we are introduced to first.
Back to the shower stall. The monkey’s was first ushered into the bathroom of a hotel room, to find Best Man Joe (Manish Gandhi) failing to produce his speech in front of the mirror. The usual excruciating jokes about “marriage is an institution / who wants to live in an institution” are tried and rejected. So too are stories of the “Kit Kat Club” – the latter by phone conversation with the groom.
Moving into the bedroom, Nick (Fred Fergus), the bride’s brother arrives. A kiss is shared, what does it mean? We are unsure but interested.
On to the Groom’s room. Tunde (Dauda Ladejobi) is fielding text messages from his bride, best man and more. Agitated and not yet dressed, young Kitty is missing and Abigail (Tessi Orange-Turner) crashes in looking for her. Later, bad luck or not, bride Georgina (Carla Langley) arrives to make things right before the ceremony.
Langley and Ladejobi play a deep and touching conversation, and we can move on, knowing things will be right between them.
The best and most dramatic scene follows, in the room of the bride and her bridesmaids, as the huge moment of putting on the dress arrives. Starting noisily in a state of heightened excitement as Abigail and Georgina’s sister Lizzy (Alice Brittain) gad about orbiting Georgina, things turn quickly dark.
From a handbag knocked over by The Cleaner, a pregnancy test emerges. We wait nervously as owner Lizzy sets her phone timer for a result… Alice Brittain delivers the scene brilliantly, and to be close enough to feel as well as see the tension is the highlight of the piece.
On to the bridal suite. Tacky hotel “bridal package” commercial looping on the TV, even tackier swans and rose petals on the bed. A slightly scruffy man enters the room and worries about where to place a tatty envelope with “Georgina” written on it (you have to be close enough to read it).
Turns out to be David (Jonathan McGuinness), the bride’s estranged father. Our group were lucky to meet him at this point, as it plays perfectly with the narrative of the next scene. Either way, when Ladejobi enters, the exchange between him and McGuinness provides an emotional moment that weddings are always remembered for.
We also find out where Kitty is.
We then get the other side of the story in David’s ex-wife’s room. Mother of the bride Helen (Johanne Murdock) is a model of organised chaos. Tip envelopes and seating plan on the bed, list of room numbers on a pad by the phone.
Son rushes in borrowing money (the bar staff won’t be pleased it came from their envelope). Kitty is still missing. David arrives and important history is revealed.
And go with the black fascinator over the pink hat. Too matchy-matchy otherwise, feels the monkey.
Final scene, Georgina’s grandparents’ room. Notably one of the cheapest and smallest. Eileen and Gordon (Fiona Watson, Geof Atwell). She nurses her wheelchair bound stroke victim husband with all the love a long marriage engenders.
The acting is almost unbearingly moving. Watson communicates the exact mixture of tenderness and humour-disguised angry frustration that every carer knows.
Atwell is a study in calculated helplessness. Hating himself for his own condition and limitations. The absolute joy in his eyes when his elder granddaughter arrives, the compassion of The Cleaner attending when she observes his needs. His holding of her hand is telling.
Finally, back in the hotel hallway, The Cleaner is ignored and just buffeted from all sides as the guests rush between rooms in final preparation, 15 minutes to go.
Our journey is over, and we have observed more than just the preamble to a wedding. We have seen married life beginning, middle and end, and considered the philosophies of attachment and estrangement in surprising depth.
Perhaps some scenes are a little long (they do digress from the printed play script on sale), but the interplay – shouting from corridors and bursting into rooms – enhances momentum.
As the monkey said, they probably do also play better encountered in some sequences than others – meeting David earlier could be confusing, for example, but Daphna Attias’s direction of her, Terry O’Donovan and Chloe Moss’s work is impeccably paced.
It also does depend how willing you are to lose inhibition and get as close to the performers and equipment as possible. The monkey did notice that by the fifth room, a few more of its group were willing to get more involved, and it did add to their experience, as well as bringing the scene further to life than having most simply standing by the walls.
For £300 per room, per night, in peak season, you get nicely appointed but rather murkily brown (potentially gerbil-cage sized), often oddly shaped, bedrooms at Malmaison Barbican. Still, steaks are 50% off on Thursdays 5.30pm to 9pm.
As David said, he rarely stays in hotels – you never know who has been there. Self-catering, you can bring your own sheets. And not have to stay where 72 people trample through each room, every day for 2 weeks.
Worth being one of those 72. The London production is sold out for the run ending on 8th February 2026, but it is worth checking for a return if you can.
It visits Reading (sold out at time of writing) and Manchester (limited availability as of 28th January 2026) in February 2026, if it comes your way, try for an invitation at danteordie.com.
5 stars.