Zombie Nation
Undead stage show invades East End
While you can
anticipate “having the crap scared out of you”, Kiwi theatre group Generation Of Z’s upcoming London season will also boast some unexpected qualities. Along with “some freaky, borderline stuff ”, the immersive zombie show will have just as much heart as it will blood and guts.
“We’ve really focused on making sure that you care about what’s going on,” producer Charlie McDermott tells Red Alert. “We want to force people to make some true moral decisions. What we’ve managed to do is to have these choices that all have alternate outcomes. The actors know both sides that it can go in, so it allows the audience to affect what’s happening in an elegant, non- forced way because it’s rooted in the story.”
With society collapsing after the deadly Z virus turns vast swathes of the populace into rabid, undead hordes, Generation Of Z: Apocalypse will feature four storylines and two separate casts, meaning that it is twice as complex as the production that sold out at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Staged at a former department store in Whitechapel, it will feature special effects from Pinewood- based Bloody Stuff and prosthetics from Kristyan Mallet, who worked on Guardians Of The Galaxy and Harry Potter.
“We’ve had a zombie redesign, which was cool,” laughs McDermott, who praises The Walking Dead for “making you care about the characters so it’s not just watched by horror fans.”
However, he reveals that Generation Of Z is actually more influenced by zombie survival game The Last Of Us. “What we’re trying to do is to put people inside the game or the movie,” he says. “We’re fanboys, so what we’re trying to do is make something that we like. I love the genre but now that I’m working in it, I think, ‘ How can we hone this even further?’” Generation Of Z: Apocalypse previews from 4 April and opens on 22 April.