Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic It’s coffee time in the smart London hotel where we meet, but You Me Bum Bum Train creators Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd both opt for some intensely healthy looking green juice. “At this point we need all the vitamins we can get,” explains Lloyd, laughing.That’s because the pair have come from a secret location nearby where they are midway through construction of their new You Me Bum Bum Train experience. And construction is the word. YMBBT shows take over huge empty buildings and send their “passengers” on a dizzying rollercoaster ride through a succession of vastly different worlds, each one created in intricate physical detail — right down to functional plumbing and the precise texture of a carpet. “The smell is really important,” says Bond, who has arrived in this swank hotel lobby wearing a hi-vis vest and a walkie-talkie.It’s 20 years since the duo, now in their forties, launched this eccentrically named but wildly popular phenomenon as an art college experiment. And it’s eight since their last outing in London, which took over a disused building on Charing Cross Road. From tiny beginnings as a 2004 club night in Brighton, the show rapidly became a cult hit, winning awards and selling out in a trice. Pretty extraordinary, given that everyone who signs up to attend has no idea what they are letting themselves in for. “It’s a massive jump into the unknown every time,” says Lloyd.Indeed, engaging with YMBBT on any level is a bit like dealing with some benign version of the mafia. Everyone involved is sworn to silence and participants sign an agreement not to disclose what happens. Secrecy is paramount: to reveal the precise contents of the show would be to ruin it for future passengers.Stepping into a YMBBT show is like falling into a weird and wonderful dream. Propelled by a huge team of volunteers, you travel solo and at speed through a succession of scenes in which you play the lead role. How you journey varies wildly and, from the instant you arrive, you might find yourself at the heart of situations you never imagined, reacting in ways you find astonishing. Spontaneity is key — the less you know in advance, the more you react in the moment.If it sounds challenging, well, it is — but it can also be astonishingly liberating and exhilarating, and there’s a generosity to it that encourages bravery. Participants often find reserves they never dreamt of. Bond cherishes the memory of one, highly sceptical, local woman she persuaded to visit the 2012 show in east London, who staggered out at the end, dazed and elated, and gave the show possibly its greatest accolade yet: “It’s better than bingo.”Better than bingo, then. But is there a greater point to the show? Lloyd points to the fact that it has changed the lives of some participants: one man came out to his wife at the end of a show; another overcame a serious phobia; some people have switched careers.Meanwhile, a thread in the last piece prompted deep reflection in some participants. “One woman said she would never think about refugees coming into the country in the same way,” says Lloyd.Who you become in life gets reinforced over and over. That’s why it’s important that people travel through it alone. You remember your potentialBond adds that there can also be a transformative effect to being one of the thousands of volunteers who act in the scenes or work backstage, and who are key to the show’s success. She cites the case of one volunteer who had been homeless: “He said he hadn’t been treated like a human for 10 years — no one looked him in the eye, he wasn’t acknowledged by anyone. [Joining the team] he couldn’t believe the trust people gave him.” He now helps a charity rehabilitating homeless people. “People grow so rapidly and exponentially,” says Bond. “That’s what motivates us to do it.”The volunteer element of the show has drawn criticism in the past, but Bond points out that “it’s based on free will — people won’t come if they don’t want to be a part of it”. The company is not-for-profit and raised £120,000 for charities during its last show.Bum Bum Train arrived during a wave of immersive, interactive work that rolled through UK theatre in the early Noughties: shows such as Punchdrunk’s Masque of the Red Death and Sleep No More, which enveloped their audiences in the world of the play. Some were brilliant, some were political, some were only tangentially “immersive”. A few raised difficult questions about where the boundaries lie — how much interaction with a performer is permissible, for instance, and what happens if you refuse to comply with a character’s instructions. And they are not for everyone: some people hate interaction and just want to watch a good play.But at its best, such experiential work can be thrilling, maximising the immediacy and physicality of theatre. On one level, it feels like a response to the interactive appeal of gaming and online entertainment: it also offers agency and immersion but in an intimate, live experience. On screen you can’t reach out and touch a velvet curtain, catch your hair on twigs as you crawl down a passage or smell the onions a character is frying. YMBBT brings its own compelling twist by crafting the whole show around individual participants, making every encounter along the journey unique and unpredictable. At its core lies the simple but irresistible question: what if? What if I were someone else, how would I behave? What if my own life were different? Who would I be?Some of those “what ifs” are playful or surreal — you often emerge seeing the idiosyncrasies of the real world afresh. Others are dizzily escapist. But some are serious. Bond and Lloyd say that the show is not overtly political, but it has touched on significant topical issues.“YMBBT is like an empathy machine,” says Lloyd. “You’re getting to walk in someone else’s shoes. We’ve had people feeling what it’s like to be totally disempowered. The main thing about being a human is having more empathy and understanding.”Equally important, he adds, is the chance to see yourself in a completely new light: “Who you become in life gets reinforced over and over. That’s why it’s important that people travel through it alone and can rediscover those parts of themselves. You remember your potential.”Perhaps, the further we venture into a world dominated by the digital, the more attractive shows that invite physical engagement become. Certainly there is no shortage of work straddling the theatre-event-experience borders — in London a highly eclectic range includes 1984, Faulty Towers: The Dining Experience and The War of the Worlds. Some theatre companies have explored overlaying fictional worlds onto the streets; others are experimenting with binaural sound technology; immersive maestros Punchdrunk now have a permanent home. And many more mainstream shows — such as the West End hit Cabaret — deploy some element of immersion.For Bond and Lloyd — who hope to extend the run of the new show and to launch others around the globe — simple human interaction is the key. YMBBT depends on instant trust between participants and volunteers and in giving yourself up to your imagination. “The reward we all get from working on a huge community project is beyond words, to be honest,” says Bond. “At the heart of the concept is human connection. It’s play in its purest form.”You Me Bum Bum Train runs at a secret location in London’s West End, from November 26. You can volunteer at bumbumtrain.comFind out about our latest stories first — follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
