Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

You can always rely on dreamthinkspeak to provide a curious and disorientating hour or so. This time in the Shorditch Town Hall Hotel where Margaret de Beaumont has lived for 60 years. It takes its inspiration from the story of the Duchess of Argyll, who spent her last years living in a hotel in the same way.

There were only two of us, and I soon lost the other one! Our first room was one of the hotel’s budget windowless rooms without bathroom. Simply furnished, there’s a mirror on each wall, one a two-way mirror looking into another room where there is a real woman, and the others showing video footage of three quite different scenes involving her. As we walk through many corridors and rooms these images recur and we encounter similar rooms from dolls house size to life-size. You are given few instructions and sometimes wait wondering whether to stay or move, and if so to where, but you eventually get into the rhythm of your wander and become brave enough to try doors and pop round corners. There is a coup d’theatre towards the end and things that have puzzled you begin to make sense.

It’s a disorientating but fascinating experience, perhaps a little too short to develop the character enough. The design of the space is stunning and I was left with questions until after I’d left that I think I resolved on the way home! In comparison with much of the work Tristan Sharps and his company have done, it’s smaller scale, more intimate and more mysterious. It’s hard to say more without spoiling it, so I won’t!