You Me Bum Bum Train: ‘There have been weddings, children and lifelong friendships made through this show’
The secrecy agreement signed on arrival means I can’t tell you about the part of the show where [redacted] is [redacted] on my [redacted]. Nor can I fully describe the flummoxing moment when I’m asked to [redacted] in front of dozens of [redacted]. Even the origin of the show’s eccentric title is a closely guarded secret. But I can tell you this: at the end of You Me Bum Bum Train, the logistically improbable production that has grown a devoted cult following over the last two decades, an A-lister at the bar looks at me, dazed, and asks if I’m real.
Dreamed up in 2004 by two university friends, You Me Bum Bum Train is the near-mythical operation that upends expectations of what theatre is and how participatory an audience can be. “We wanted to create an artform that was about other people,” says co-founder Kate Bond, “to give people rich experiences.” While the concept has grown, it has held on to the same heart. “I’ve never known what I wanted to do in life,” says Morgan Lloyd, the other half of the duo, “but this project gives a sense of meaning. It has a really profound effect.”
The dizzying immersive spectacle has sparked career changes, prompted marriages and hastened at least one divorce. Now the show, which was last seen nine years ago with entirely different content, is taking over a cavernous, top-secret space in London. As one of the city’s most in-demand theatrical experiences, with the last production prompting more than 120,000 people to apply for tickets in the first minute of release, it is almost impossible to score a ride.
This is a show that demands full-bodied, blood-pumping attention from its participants. One audience member (or “passenger”) at a time is placed at the centre of a series of extraordinarily realised, whiplash-inducing scenes, the wild, intricate details of which are strictly under wraps in order to maintain authentic and unselfconscious responses from passengers. Some scenes are everyday occurrences, made strange by being out of context, while others are heart-quickening situations most of us would never find ourselves in. To be put at the show’s centre requires trust, but for that you are well rewarded; it is revelatory, intense and entirely, astonishingly odd. “If you want to create something that’s going to compete in the immersive era,” says Lloyd, “you’re on to a loss leader. You have to create for curiosity, to ask: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if …?’”
Each secret scene is created with impeccable detail; many of the rooms use the exact measurements of the real-life spaces they imitate. A passenger might be in and out of the scene in under a minute, but every inch of the design is a deliberate choice, right down to the plug sockets. “If details were missing,” says Bond, who moved house to be close to the production, “it would hit them on some subconscious level.” The result is an expansive, meticulously planned playground that loosens passengers’ grip on reality. “Play and fantasy are just part of your day as a kid,” Bond observes. “Then responsibility takes over as an adult. Bum Bum Train allows people to be in that childlike mode again.”
An upcoming charity ballot is giving potential passengers another opportunity to attend the sell-out show. But there is another, much more certain way to learn its sought-after secrets: to join the mighty roster of the thousands of volunteers who make the production possible. Some volunteers pop in for a night to be part of a scene. Others have spent the last few months – some even years – offering time, skill and elbow grease to make this implausible project into something physical. When I rave to my mum about my experience as a passenger and tell her I’m going to volunteer, she is so frustrated by my cryptic excitement that she insists on coming along, too.
Behind the scenes, we discover a different kind of magic. “It was bewildering and thrilling,” my mum says afterwards. “But what surprised me most was the strong sense of community. I felt I belonged within minutes.” Throughout the night, everyone talks to us like old friends. “The rules of ordinary life don’t apply any more,” says Bond, “so everyone feels a sense of freedom.” But this autonomy exists within a structure of strict planning and rigorous care; I would trust the production team to successfully plan a heist, such is their level of calm control as they keep the show running smoothly, navigating the many bodies – the numbers of which are also top secret – behind the scenes, and preventing one passenger from running into another.
Without multitudes of strangers showing up every night, the entire operation would fall apart. “It’s impractical, isn’t it?” laughs Bond. But show up they do, because within these intricate sets, a community has formed. Mum and I are allocated to a scene with a woman who has come along for the first time because of the impact volunteering has had on her sister, a carer who suffers from a chronic illness. She says she has never seen her sister “so consistently happy”. Another long-term volunteer on the production side tells me his friend credits his experience on the show with lifting him out of depression. “Everyone is invited to become a custodian of their part of it,” Lloyd says, trying to pinpoint the power of being involved. “It gives people an opportunity to discover or rediscover parts of themselves.”
With so many strangers colliding on the audacious creative project, the show has become a matchmaker of sorts. It has shifted people’s career trajectories, with volunteers finding work through the people they meet and experience they gain. “It’s serendipitous learning,” says Bond. “People are in a perpetual state of surprising themselves.” Relationships have blossomed, too. “Dating is a depressing process,” says Lloyd, “but so many people meet through Bum Bum Train. There have been weddings, children, lifelong friendships. You name it.”
The show’s reliance on volunteers has attracted controversy. The organisation has previously been investigated by Equity for not paying its actors, but a figure floats around of how much tickets to the show would be if everyone was paid: £6,000. Instead, the tickets are £100 each, allocated by ballot. “Supposedly volunteers are much happier than paid people because what they’re doing is meaningful to them,” says Bond. But they both worry about volunteers overworking themselves on the show, particularly those on the production team, who give up the most significant chunks of time. “We’ve been working with some people on the production for this show for eight years,” says Lloyd. “Those are the ones I feel really accountable to.” A small number of the team are paid, but at far lower than market rates. I ask one underpaid professional why she does it. “Because you get to make this happen,” she says, waving her hand around the secret space, while that night’s volunteers get ready to blow a bunch of strangers’ minds.
The show very nearly didn’t happen at all. Bond remembers a performance one Wednesday (“You always remember the day of the week when something bad has happened”) when it was all about to crumble: people dropped out, mental health spiralled, money was tight, a venue hadn’t been found. But with time, support and thousands of phone calls, they made it.
The sense of awe and gratitude at having made it here, to be a part of it all, is a feeling that runs all the way through to its passengers. A few weeks ago, a passenger came to the show having recently been given a terminal diagnosis. She had been nervous it would make her aware of all the experiences she would never get to have, but that anxiety quickly disappeared. “She said it was like living 45 different lifetimes,” says Lloyd, still slightly stunned by her response. “As she was leaving each scene she wanted to turn around and thank everyone.” With each passenger swiftly pulled through to the next scene, she didn’t get the chance. “So we invited her back to follow the last passenger through. She got to thank them all.”
Since the first iteration of the production in 2004, neither Lloyd nor Bond has missed a single show. “I get all my nutrients from this place,” Bond smiles. They both speak about the show with pride and astonishment that the ridiculous idea they had 20 years ago has come to life and thrived. “We might not be financially well off from doing this project,” says Lloyd, “but we are experience-rich, and the fact that I’ve done it with Kate is the real gift. It’s been a rollercoaster. If it all crashes and we go bankrupt, that will just have been another Bum Bum experience.”
Sign up to bumbumtrain.com to volunteer or be the first to hear about the upcoming charity ballot
