Hidden from view inside a south London warehouse, a new underground movement will be fighting the international blight of misinformation this summer.
The huge immersive event – half theatrical show, half social campaign – is to involve some of Britain’s leading acting talent, including Toby Jones and Meera Syal, and has been put together by a theatre company led by a woman who learned about misinformation the hard way, at the Georgian television station Imedi.
Liana Patarkatsishvili, the founder of Sage & Jester productions, still recalls the moment when the independent newsroom was taken over on the orders of the government of Mikheil Saakashvili. Her experiences have influenced her work on the new show, which is due to take place over 9,000 sq metres in an empty building in Deptford.
“I still remember those days clearly,” she told the Observer. “Before the 2007 crackdown in Georgia, independent media faced significant challenges and mounting pressure.”
The debut show, called Storehouse, is due to run from 4 June until 20 September. The story will take place in a fictional storage facility, where humanity’s history has been archived since 1983, the dawn of the internet.
In this arena, a “battle between truth and order” will be waged, “as the powerful manipulate the truth to their own ends and critical thinking is the only effective weapon”. Syal, who will voice Dolly K Guha, one of the imagined radical founders of the movement, said: “I’m thrilled to be part of Storehouse. It is an ambitious immersive production that tackles a critical issue.”
The three other founders are played by Jones, whose performances as postmaster Alan Bates in the ITV drama about the Post Office scandal won widespread acclaim, the renowned actor Kathryn Hunter, recently seen in Netflix’s Black Doves and in the film Poor Things, and by rising star Billy Howle from the film On Chesil Beach. They will guide visitors through the warehouse and through a cast of live actors.
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Patarkatsishvili is keen to show that misinformation is not just the spreading of deliberate falsehoods. “It’s also about creating uncertainty and eroding trust,” she said. “This tactic has been used globally, from casting doubt in the media to flooding the public with conflicting narratives. In today’s attention economy, news has been commodified, becoming a product that needs to be ‘sold’. It becomes paramount to be able to discern ‘sellable information’ and false narratives from facts and being properly factually informed.”
The show will run in tandem with a series of public debates, or critical conversations, that are being held through the summer on the other side of London at the Pleasance theatre. The sessions, staged in collaboration with Intelligence Squared, will be compered by the journalist Sophia Smith Galer.
The discussions are intended to help inform or “inoculate” the audience against misinformation by showing them how it can work. “We want to empower individuals by better understanding the powers at play. A key point for us is to give people a sense of agency, as this topic can make us feel apathetic and disempowered, which ultimately feeds the problem,” said Patarkatsishvili, whose late father, known as Badri, founded the Imedi radio station and television station in Georgia.
Debate, she argues, might be a more conventional way to develop critical thinking skills, but theatre can be more effective. “In its own way, this is what Storehouse aims to do; immerse audiences in a world where they decide what’s true,” she said. “The art of storytelling creates empathy and understanding in ways that facts alone cannot. When audiences step inside, they’re not just watching a story – they’re living it. They’re forced to grapple with difficult questions about truth, power, and their own complicity in shaping narratives. Entertainment has always been a powerful tool because it humanises abstract issues and makes them personal.”
Patarkatsishvili’s hope is that Storehouse will be “more than a show – it’s a call to action”.
“It asks audiences to reflect on their role in today’s information ecosystem, and challenges them to take responsibility for the stories they believe and share.”
