To coincide with the General Election, the Unity theatre played host to a week of political performances entitled ‘U-Decide’.

Early Days (of a better nation), the penultimate play of the series, is a piece of interactive theatre made for a playing audience. For many people, the word ‘interactive’ immediately sounds alarm bells and the idea of audience participation can be enough to put off even the most enthusiastic of theatre goers.

But Early Days, created by Coney, feels more like a game than a piece of theatre; we don’t act, as such, but instead buy into an imaginary albeit believable scenario that’s best positioned somewhere between Black Mirror and the Hunger
Games. Naturally I’m Jennifer Lawrence.

So what’s the scenario?

Dacia has been torn apart by civil war. In the aftermath, the country is divided into three regions: the city, the islands and the plains. We, the ‘chosen’ citizens, are called upon to represent each of the regions in a unity parliament. Our task? To shape the nation’s future.

Split into three groups the audience is marched off into separate areas of the Unity building and briefed, via way of video, on what’s going on.

At this point, nobody has a clue and it took a while for me to fully understand what Early Days is all about. Whilst this certainly makes for an exciting experience, the piece would benefit from a more comprehensive grounding in terms of context, particularly as audience participation is key from the outset.

As our votes were cast and counted and a new government elected in the UK, a similar process was playing out in the Unity theatre as the parliament of Dacia assembled and the audience of representatives attempted to piece the country back together.

Vital questions were posed and debated: Should we accept aid from the World Council but risk being overtaken by ‘peacekeepers’? How should we spend our budget? Ultimately, what is most important: law and order, food or medical care?

If this doesn’t already sound intense enough, I should mention that the whole process is timed and decisions must be finalised by the time the klaxon sounds and the lights go out; It is brilliant, but not for the fainthearted.

I’ve never experienced anything quite like Early Days and the fact that the Liverpool performance coincided with the election results made it all the more surreal and overwhelming.

If you’ve ever declared in a moment of self-righteousness that you could do a better job of being prime minister, this is the play for you.

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A celebration of Shakespeare Lantern to stage shows at Unity Theatre following closure First look at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre transformation Teatro Pomodoro interview: The award-winning Liverpool-based performance group Get Ready for the Weekend in Liverpool Unity Theatre and Bluecoat awarded Arts Council grants