The Table
★★★★☆ Questioning
Traverse: Thur 11 – Sat 13 Jun 2026
Review by Thom Dibdin
Set out for a short run at the Traverse, Lung Ha’s The Table is a curious hybrid of immersive theatre, dance, spoken word and imagery. A hybrid that draws you in and leaves you asking more.
The influence of Curious Seed choreographer Christine Devaney, who had the original idea, is clear in much of the movement. But the playful inquisitiveness of the individual members of the Lung Ha company is equally important here – their input to the devising process. It isn’t just theatre, however, it is an interrogation.
A scene from The Table by Curious Seed and Lung Ha Theatre Company in association with Lyra . Pic: Peter Dibdin.
In footballing commentator speak, Lung Ha are “asking the question” of their audience. It’s a neat twist on the whole concept of immersive theatre. This isn’t just interactive, but confrontational. The theatre company themselves, become the audience. Their audience, the performers.
It starts long before nominal curtain up. “Who invited you?” The young actor is polite but firm in their questioning in the Traverse bar, where folk queue up behind a series of roped off areas.
I’ve got a map, I picked one up from the table upstairs, and I do know who invited me. In fact I was specifically invited. Twice. But for a second the whole notion of being allowed to be there goes charging out of my mind and, for the life of me, I can’t even stutter their name. To my horror, I can’t justify my presence in the room.
embarrassment
“Don’t worry, I’ll come back and ask you again later,” and off they move to another group of people, waiting in line in front of a different colour-coded sign. While I recover all the facts which had just left my head, and reflect on my embarrassment.
The colour coding is linked to the maps we picked up. The purple one with the scorpion logo on the back looked like a good choice. And the purple route proves interesting too. Down through Traverse Two, where two people are bent in concentration at a table, focussed on – what? Making a table, it would appear.
A scene from The Table. Pic: Peter Dibdin.
There is a costume rail of outfits, but it feels wrong to go and look. Anyway, we are quickly ushered through another elaborate doorway, round the innards of the Traverse and across the stage. A few cast members are hanging around looking bored, casting disdainful glances up at the slowly filling bank of seats in Traverse One.
Another queue led people straight in: through the doors and down the stairs. Two more groups came through who knows where: round the back maybe, through some other secret, unknowable place.
It is this dislocation which sits at the heart of The Table. The creation of a space where you are on the edge – invited but not invited. Tolerated by not necessarily welcomed. Mostly ignored, but sometimes the subject of abrupt, inappropriate interest.
camaraderie
The performance is a series of vignettes and scenes. Some are obvious – as the cast queue for the right to pass through an entrance they justify their entry with naive, slight attributes. Not all are accepted. Those who aren’t go to the back of the queue.
But it is not shallow. Those who enter get to dress up – those are the flamboyant costumes from Traverse Two. The camaraderie of the queue is not forgotten, however, in the light touch of the drama. Everyone does get in, eventually. The inquisitor at the door is then suddenly left outside. The balance of power changes.
A scene from The Table. Pic: Peter Dibdin.
Other elements are just absurd. An office. A table where not everyone wants to be. A place where if one leaves, then all must do so. “I’m leaving the meeting” is a petulant threat. It repeats. Changes, morphs slightly. Have they been disinvited?
Through it all, however, there is a strong element of dance. David Paul Jones and Shea Martin provide poignant, elegiac music. The 20 strong Lung Ha company, the three Curious Seed performers – Althea Young, Andrew Gardiner and Sky Su – and the embedded BSL performer, Emery Hunter, move and groove around the stage.
a precipitation of pattern
They are all individuals, performing short stuttering solo elements of something larger. Gradually, pairs become apparent, duets break out – sometimes between those dancing together, but more often across the width or depth of the stage. It’s a process, a precipitation of pattern into the chaos.
Actors speak over the whole, delivering instructional monologues what refer to rules and belonging. That speak of structure. Karen Tenant’s design indicates a rarified area, transforming with the words. Her costumes are playful and packed with colour.
A scene from The Table. Pic: Peter Dibdin.
As things mount to a head, a septet of young performers from Lyra Arts Space begin to enter the space. They hide under tables, peer out, inquisitive. Eventually become integrated into the piece before going beyond it, taking a hold of the microphones. Asking their own question of the adults, asking them to pay attention, to stop hiding behind their screens. To notice them.
Co-directors Devaney with Lung Ha’s Maria Oliver and Lyra’s Jo Timmins have the structure just about right. The balance and pacing create a mesmerising effect, enhanced by Emma Jones’s lighting that can pick out real, actual physical tables that are brought onto the stage, or wash the whole place in a subtle hue.
But in the end, before the bows, before the applause, before the standing ovation, it is the company on stage who take their moment as the lights come up. Standing. Looking up at the steeply raked seats. Asking the question. Who invited you?
Running time: One hour and 10 minutes (no interval)
Traverse, 10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED.
Thur 18 – Sat 20 June 2026
Evenings: 7.30pm; Sat mat: 2.30pm (Trav 1).
Tickets and details: Book here.
A scene from The Table. Pic: Peter Dibdin.
ENDS
