Creatives and performers Kate Taylor Hunter and Anita Brokmeier talk new immersive experience ‘Fish in a Kettle’: “Human beings are incredibly destructive, but also incredibly adaptive”

Following their vision of developing theatre with a laboratory mindset, Lab Rats Collective brings their latest experiment to Liverpool for a strictly limited run next week, taking audiences on a journey into the future and the dystopian consequences of climate change. Guillermo Nazara chats with the company’s founders to learn more about the show’s development and how they’ve recycled this hot topic into an innovative concept.

How does it feel to be finally opening such a unique theatrical experience?

Honestly, both exciting and terrifying. We’ve spent the last year building this strange little world together, and immersive theatre always comes with a certain level of unpredictability – you never fully know how audiences will respond until people are actually inside the space. That’s both the joy and the fear of it. We’ve created something that is playful, emotional, chaotic, and quite intimate at times, so now we’re at the point where we finally get to share it with people instead of just living inside our own imaginations and rehearsal rooms. We can’t wait for audiences to step into the party.

How did the idea for the show come about?

Two years ago during our training at RADA, we collaborated on a show, Farewell And Thanks for All The Sheep, playfully exploring the politics and environmental dimensions of fashion. That process sparked a much bigger interest in making work around climate and the systems shaping the world we live in.

There were a lot of calls emerging for artists to engage with the ocean and ocean science, so we started applying for different opportunities and reaching out directly to marine scientists – very much cold emailing people without really knowing anyone in that world. Eventually, Dr Marta Payo Payo from the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool responded, and that became the beginning of an ongoing collaboration.

After receiving funding from TIDAL ArtS, the project really started to take shape. From there, the process was incredibly exploratory. We spent time researching coastal futures, numerical modelling and rising sea levels, but also improvising physically in rehearsal rooms, speaking to communities around Merseyside and experimenting with images, movement and atmosphere.

The idea of the ocean as this erratic, emotional party host only emerged later through the devising process. We became interested in the ocean not as a distant backdrop or abstract environmental issue, but as something alive, overwhelmed, seductive and unpredictable – a force that could hold pleasure, grief, rage and tenderness all at once. Once that image appeared, the whole world of the show began to unfold around it.

What are the reasons for its immersive approach, instead of, for example, a conventional, proscenium play exploring the same themes?

Climate change is something we often experience at a distance – through headlines, statistics or abstract conversations. We were interested in creating something more embodied and immediate. Immersive theatre allows audiences to physically move through the world of the piece, to choose where to go, who to follow, and how close they want to get to the action.

We also love the tension immersive theatre creates between performance and reality. You’re no longer sitting safely in the dark observing something from afar – you’re sharing the same air, the same rooms, the same atmosphere. That felt important for a piece about the ocean, because the sea isn’t separate from us. We live with it, inside it and because of it.

One of the show’s most distinctive elements is its scientific research, acting as a cautionary tale on the climate crisis. Is the production intended to be a call to action?

In some ways, yes, but not in a straightforward or moralising sense. We’re less interested in telling audiences what to think or do, and more interested in creating an emotional and imaginative experience that stays with them afterwards.

The show definitely engages with the realities of the climate crisis, but we also wanted to move away from narratives based entirely around guilt or doom. There’s humour, desire, absurdity, and hope in the piece as well. Even if the most utopian future is one where the ocean is still ‘wounded’ and things are just, well, less bad than they can possibly be, there’s a strong feeling that healing is possible when we heal ourselves in the first place, and restore a sense of belonging and community which will empower us to think about our environment and futures in a different way.

So it’s less about ‘we have to recycle more’ and more about shifting our thinking and the way we are with each other and the world we live in. An internal shift needs to happen before external actions will be sustainable and genuine.

What has the development process been like?

Very collaborative, very messy, and very playful.

Our collective comes from a devising background, so we don’t begin with a finished script. We build the work through improvisation, movement, images, conversations, research and experimentation. Sometimes we discover entire scenes physically before there are any words attached to them at all.

The process has involved everything from reading scientific reports to swimming in the sea, from building choreography around fish behaviour to improvising inside makeshift “ocean tanks”. It’s been a long process of layering different materials and perspectives together until the world of the show started to reveal itself.

Another key feature in the show is how audiences make their own story, deciding which character they want to follow. How have you managed to make all these separate elements intertwine and work seamlessly as a whole?

A lot of structural planning – and a lot of trust.

The show is built almost like a living system, where different scenes, spaces and characters echo each other thematically rather than functioning as one single linear narrative. Audiences might encounter the same future from completely different emotional perspectives depending on who they choose to follow.

At the same time, there are anchor moments where everyone comes back together collectively before the world shifts again. We were interested in creating something that feels slightly tidal – audiences drift apart, reconnect, disappear into private spaces and return again.

The challenge has been making sure that every pathway feels emotionally complete whilst still contributing to the larger world of the piece.

Have you encountered any particular challenges?

Constantly. Immersive theatre is technically and logistically demanding because you’re building multiple experiences simultaneously. There’s choreography, sound, scenography, audience flow, timing, and performer improvisation all happening at once.

There’s also the challenge of balancing tone. We’re dealing with huge themes like climate collapse and ecological grief, but we never wanted the piece to feel preachy or relentlessly bleak. Finding a language that could hold darkness, absurdity, tenderness, and humour at the same time has probably been one of the biggest creative challenges.

And of course, making ambitious immersive theatre on a limited budget always requires a lot of inventiveness.

Apart from the climate crisis, are there other themes you’ve intended to explore?

Definitely. The show also explores loneliness, denial, intimacy, community, desire, grief, and the strange ways people cope with uncertainty.

At its core, the piece is really about relationships – our relationship to the environment, to each other, to our bodies, and to futures we can’t fully control. There’s also a strong thread around care: who gets protected, who gets abandoned, and what it means to live collectively during unstable times.

What are the highlights of the production?

Without giving too much away: audiences can expect strange rituals, overheated dancing, intimate encounters, surreal prophecies, nightclub energy, and moments that feel unexpectedly tender.

One of the things we’re most excited about is the atmosphere of the piece. We wanted it to feel like stepping into a party that has been going on for far too long – seductive, funny, melancholic, and slightly dangerous all at once.

In the end, will we sink or will we swim in real life?

Probably both – often, two things can be true at the same time. One of the things we discovered while making the show is that the future is rarely completely dystopian or completely utopian. Human beings are incredibly destructive, but also incredibly adaptive, creative, and communal.

The show doesn’t offer a clean answer, because reality probably won’t either. But there’s something hopeful in the idea that futures are still being shaped collectively, and that imagination itself can be part of that process.

Why come see Fish In A Kettle?

Because it’s strange, immersive, funny, unsettling and unlike a conventional night at the theatre.

You can come for the atmosphere, the movement, the music, the performances, the climate themes, the immersive experience – or simply because you want to wander through a surreal house party hosted by the Ocean in the year 2050.

And because sometimes it’s easier to think about difficult things when you’re holding a drink at a party together.

Fish in a Kettle plays from 25 May to 30 May a tLiverpool’s Fabric Studios. Tickets are available on the following link.

By Guillermo Nazara