To Sleep To Dream

To Sleep To Dream, an audio work you experience blindfolded, is a compelling technical achievement. Steve Fanagan’s sound design and Chris Timpson’s “sound spatialization” is densely and meticulously crafted, forcing your ears to focus on the many audio layers to the show. Unfortunately, the rest of the production only serves to let this down.

The plot is a pastiche of dystopian sci-fi motifs familiar from the likes of Waterworld, Black Mirror and The Lego Movie: a flooded earth, a totalitarian government under which menial tasks are remunerated with “points” used to purchase everything from lunch to showers, a ban on creativity. Our protagonist, surprise surprise, meets a group of rebels who introduce him to another way of thinking.

Rather than embracing what is different about an exclusively aural experience, EarFilms instead seeks to make up for the deficits, with physical actions muttered and emotions spoken out loud. The presence of writer, director and narrator Daniel Marcus Clark in the room seems little more than a gimmick. He speaks over the pre-recorded audio, every slight stumble at odds with the diligent planning of the soundscape.

The central concern of To Sleep To Dream seems to be showing the audience the power of the imagination: look what you can create when you don’t have visuals to get in your way! Fundamentally, though, this is a concept familiar to anyone who has ever listened to a radio play – or even read a book.