Bring The Come Bargain Trilogy To Life In 2025

In one (short) month and one (standard-length) day, The Uncanny Things Trilogy will open.

It’s hard to know where to start.

I can write breathlessly about meetings with the cast to discuss all their different characters, from the zealotrous Vigilante played by Amy Kearsley, to Hestor Dart’s monastic Master of Processionals, to the evolved versions of CN Lester’s Guildmaster McCall and Sarah Griffin’s Adorer.

I can gabble away about Charley Ipsen’s designs - how I’ve seen some preliminary sketches, discussed how to make a throne worthy of the Uncanny King, seen beautiful artwork.

I can talk about the remarkable satisfaction of visiting COLAB Tower, our venue, and measuring every item of furniture, taking photos, and beginning to plan the delightful temporal TETRIS of our get-in.

This is the month, and it’s tremendously busy, with everything happening at once. I know some of you are being supportive beyond mere financial help, and it is greatly appreciated. So let’s talk about physical rewards.

Merchandise and crowdfunder rewards are being delivered to us this month. Mugs, newspaper articles, brochures, and so on. We’ll be in touch about shipping as soon as everything is gathered, and my expectation is that they’ll all be ready to go by the end of the month.

It’s been tremendously fun having a little extra creative writing project for all those backers who are receiving personalised warnings about their home environments, and the in-world history. To look into different strands of local history and culture and wonder about what they might look like in a world just aslant of our own.

This is something I had the chance to reflect on while talking to Katy Naylor of Voidspace Magazine. This is a show about community, and the ways we make it matter.

It matters, deeply, that all the cast get to express opinions about their characters before there’s a final(ish) draft of the script. That Charley’s someone I trust to bring worlds to life in ways I couldn’t imagine. And that we funded this, will fund this, from your crowdfunding support, and from ticket sales. It means that it’s not just fluff we’ve spun up for a funding bid, or to please a single donor.

When Guildmaster McCall welcomes our first guests to Come Bargain With Uncanny Things on the 4th of March, as valued and respected parts of our community, it’ll be an ethos we’ve tried to hold in our hearts since the start of this long journey in 2019.

Now, what can you do?

1. Buy tickets for yourselves! There are some nights (especially the first bout of previews, and the Trilogy In A Day shows) that are starting to move fairly fast, even before serious press gets out. So do take a moment to grab your preferred dates and the best prices.

2. Tell friends! We’re @VirtuallyOpera on Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky. Yes, that helps us get the word out and sell tickets far better than anything else we can do. But also, it’s a superb boost to morale, reminding us about the community behind us.

3. Join us, and be a member of our community in person. At the end of the day, you’ve chosen to help bring these worlds to life. So if you can come, we’d love to welcome you and make you feel at home in realms of ritual, farce, and tragedy. And if you’ve supported us but will never make it - thank you for being so generous.

The next update will be me, days before opening, with an update on rehearsal. Have a wonderful month, perhaps see you at the backer events, and more soon.