Two people, perhaps complete strangers, go to bed together. But what happens next?

Gripped by the Great Freeze of 1947, with wolf-whistling spivs and other predatory characters skulking round every corner, London could be a dangerous place for an unwary girl. In this immersive theatre installation, audiences are invited to step back in time into the bedroom of young waitress Ruby Hunter, where they listen to an apparently familiar tale unfold. But there is always more than one side to every story. What really happened? How well do we ever know the people we get into bed with?

Through the curtain and between the sheets, in the space between fairy tale and wickedly subversive horror, Big Teeth weaves together elements of Red Riding Hood, 1940s detective serials and recorded sound into a bedtime story with a bite. Expect red cloaks, wolves, and suspiciously tasty pies.

Big Teeth was originally developed with Upstart Theatre as part of Upstart's second annual DARE Festival, and staged in the atmospheric basement beneath Shoreditch Town Hall. Entering Ruby's bedroom in pairs, audience members are invited to explore the space, listen to a crackling soundscape playing from her radio, sit at her dressing table and flick through her movie magazines, and then climb into her bed to hear her story.

Here are the original audio recordings from Big Teeth - for best results, listen on headphones with a partner, with one person listening to Ruby's story and the other hearing Stephen's side of events.

Ruby - Elizabeth Dearnley
Stephen - David Sturzaker
Director - James Blakey
Sound Design and Audio Editing - Tamsin Dearnley
Production Assistant - Mieke Dodd

Written and designed by Elizabeth Dearnley for Red Hood Productions

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England. Developed with Upstart Theatre at DARE Festival with further support from the Bloomsbury Festival.

Big Teeth - Stephen's Story

Big Teeth - Ruby's Story

Big Teeth - 1940s Soundscape (created by Tamsin Dearnley)

'Time for bed, children - the Sandman's coming...'

Based on E. T. A. Hoffmann's eerie tale of the same name, the Sandman invites you to step into the memories of troubled young man Nathaniel, haunted since childhood by a sinister figure he calls 'the sandman'. Guided by Nathaniel's voice, follow him as he leads you through the house he once knew as a boy, and up the stairs to a room filled with his half-forgotten childhood memories - where he is finally compelled to look the past in the eye.

The Sandman was commissioned by the Freud Museum London as part of its The Uncanny: A Centenary exhibition, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Freud's 1919 essay 'The Uncanny'. Hoffmann's tale is discussed throughout Freud's essay, credited with evoking 'a quite unparalleled atmosphere of uncanniness'. Staged as an audio-visual installation around the Freud family home in Hampstead, this reinterpretation of Nathaniel's story invited audiences to explore the house through the eyes of a young boy, encountering doubles, mirrors, dolls, and other unsettling things along the way.

Written, directed and designed by Elizabeth Dearnley
Nathaniel - Timothy Allsop
Sound Design and Audio Editing - Tamsin Dearnley
Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

The Sandman - Nathaniel's story

elizabeth.dearnley

Related tracks