The most rewarding part comes before the piece starts, when the spectator is free to explore the streets and get a feel for his role as voyeur. Unfortunately, this freedom to roam is cut short when the show begins and the overblown and imposing narration kicks in. This narrator (Simon Kane) becomes our guide for the evening, telling us where our binoculars should point and quite how frightened and confused we should feel. It is a horribly limiting device and is symptomatic of director David Rosenberg’s missed opportunity here: instead of embracing the ambiguity of his initial concept, Rosenberg does everything in his power to restrain it. So whilst this could have been a chance to force the audience to make their own decisions and create their own stories, we are instead spoon-fed a crassly scripted, over-miked and unbelievable spectacle.

The plot is mercifully simple, revolving around two lovers in adjacent buildings and an on-looking narrator. Precious little happens, and when the explosive moments do occur – and yes they do contain violence – they’re silly rather than shocking. The atmosphere is established by the grating narrator, who breathily warns his captive audience ‘You will witness a murder this evening.’ What should have been a slow-grinding, disorientating journey towards a horrifying act of violence becomes little more than a technological experiment. The company gets particularly distracted by the sound effects: every scene is peppered with characters gulping down their drinks, breathing loudly, coughing – big, overblown sounds, which instead of drawing us into the scenes, highlight their superficiality. On top of this, Rosenberg uses overstated devices to link the scenes together – so as one scene ends, music starts playing in another room and the audience shifts its focus accordingly. It is a shame that Rosenberg chooses to patronise his audience, rather than respect the spectator and allow it real responsibility and interpretative freedom.

There are nevertheless a few striking moments here, which hint at the direction future productions might take. The script is frankly pointless, but it is the things we see and cannot stop which could have worked here. Whilst love interest Hannah Ringham’s scripted dialogue is banal, she somehow retains a certain mystery to her role and her quiet, lonely moments are good to watch. Similarly, a few unscripted scenes strike a chord: at one point a room unexpectedly comes to life and unknown characters dance chaotically behind the curtains. The scene is never explained nor incorporated into the overall production, but its spontaneity is effective, liberating and all too rare in this strangely predictable ‘mystery’.

It is encouraging to see how keen the audience was for this piece to work, despite its obvious failings. Though there was plenty of grumbling after the show, people were still unwilling to remove their headphones once the piece was over. Off the back of PunchDrunk’s hugely successful ventures, there’s a real thirst for the audience to be taken out of their comfort zone. This is something to be leapt upon and pushed as far as we can; let’s just hope that productions like this don’t put people off, before some truly brave and frightening productions have captured the public’s imagination.