Viola’s Room (2024)

Written by Daisy Johnson
Conceived by Felix Barrett

Venue: Carriageworks, Woolwich
Company: Punchdrunk
Conceived, directed and designed by Felix Barrett
Co-directed by Hector Harkness
Designed by Casey Jay Andrews
Sound Design by Gareth Fry

Production Manager: Corey Bennet
Lead Production Electrician: Adam Bergen
Lighting Programmer: David Ayton
Lighting Programmer: Stanley Olden

Photographer: Julian Abrams

“the wonderful lighting by Simon Wilkinson which steers us through Casey Jay Andrews’s design proves that light is not a single thing. It can be the soft overhead radiance from dangling cotton-wool puffballs or the bright gleam through a doorway. It can suggest a personality – a scatter of red fairy bulbs around a girl’s looking-glass. It can dazzlingly carve out new places: a miniature palace is created in an alcove when a golden glow pricks out a series of casements and offers a glimpse of shadowy waltzing couples.

Susannah Clapp, The Observer

“As the narrative unfolds, we travel with it, creeping through a maze of dimly lit passages, coming suddenly upon spookily empty locations. Light (designed by Simon Wilkinson) plays a huge role — dancing softly in front of you, flooding through the stained glass of a chapel window, slowly expanding to reveal an eerily abandoned meal.”

Sarah Hemming, The Financial Times

The design is what you take away from Viola’s Room, particularly when it comes to the use of lighting. Absolutely integral to the story, this vital element is executed to precision with versatility and flair from Simon Wilkinson

Daz Gale, All That Dazzles

“The pitch darkness holds us in safety at times but also skulks around us, as if alive (lighting design by Simon Wilkinson). But then we turn a corner and the light throws up a thrilling vision: a tree as luminous as a Yayoi Kusama installation; a hastily left banquet, gorgeously dainty in its opulence.”

Arifa Akba, The Guardian

Simon Wilkinson’s ethereal and haunting lights

Anna James, What’s On Stage

“Lighting Design by Simon Wilkinson has certainly excelled in creating a magical experience that infuses the perfect amount of whimsy, eldritch etherealness and chilling fear into the experience in a wholly unique way.”

Cathie, Theatre & Tonic