Interview: Nathan Ess on Muddled Marauders and Vegetables

When Muddled Marauders' Vegetables was first announced to run at a secret location in Clerkenwell last year, mystery surrounded the show’s content. Those who did attend stepped into a dark comedy that focused on an exiled scientist’s experiments to cure all manner of physical ailments by uploading people's consciousness into root vegetables. It was a bizarre and surreal show that defied expectations and was one of the most talked-about immersive shows of the summer, garnering strong word-of-mouth and a string of positive reviews.

Recently, we sat down with Nathan Ess, the brains behind Muddled Marauders, for their first-ever interview to discuss how the company came to be, how his unconventional beginnings creating immersive off-grid parties led to the creation of Vegetables, and what's next for the company.

Photo: Muddled Marauders

Immersive Rumours: Hi Nathan, thanks for sitting down with us today. Let’s kick things off by discussing the origins of Muddled Marauders and your history of putting on interactive and immersive events. It was quite a unique entry into the immersive world for you, right?

Nathan Ess: Yeah. A lot of it started with experimentation in rave culture. A friend of mine lived in a tower block in Plaistow, and one year I convinced him to let me throw a New Year's Eve party on its rooftop. It went unexpectedly well; something clicked, and I wanted to see if it had legs.

After a few small things gained traction, I started Muddled Marauders with a forest party in Wick Woodland. Everything was sorted, but we arrived there too early, and a police helicopter spotted us. The Park Rangers told us it would get shut down before we started. So it was 7pm, the evening of our first proper event, loads of people getting ready to join us, and we didn't have a clue where we were going to do it.

Muddled Marauders 001 in Walthamstow Marshes

Photo: Muddled Marauders

My friend Lucy and I were biking around North East London, frantically trying to pull it out of the bag. At around 9pm, she called me saying, ‘I’ve found somewhere’. There was this secret forest spot in Walthamstow Marshes, just north of Clapton. By 10 pm, we were setting up. By 11pm, we texted everyone the address. Come midnight, 400 people had arrived, with the party going until 11am. The thrill of it all was instantly addictive.

From there, things progressed quite quickly. I think our risky approach to sourcing spaces people hadn't been to before, as well as the playfulness of the design and the music, made it catch on quite quickly.

IR: A lot of these experiences are undocumented, and you can’t find much about them online. There is mention of one event you did that involved a huge tunnel maze in the middle of a forest. Can you tell us about that?

Nathan: Yeah. A couple of years deep, we were commissioned by a festival. Up until then, everything we’d done had been in London, but this was for a small festival in Grimsby. In order to help them sell tickets, we were given a bit of money to build something and entice our crowd up there. As well as building a stage, we built an 800-metre-long maze with 14 immersive scenes themed around a narrative of relationships and sexual anxiety called The Corridor of Uncertainty. It was actually based on a really shit drawing I’d done a couple of years earlier...

The Corridor of Uncertainty

Photo: Nathan Ess

The maze only opened for 2 hours, right in the middle of the second night. It was designed for people to get completely lost in, with 3-metre-high walls built from poles and thick black sheeting. You’d go around in circles and might be walking for 5 minutes before you’d end up in an STI clinic being told you’ve contracted a rare infection. Turn a corner and you're apologising to all your exes. One doesn't care and still loves you; the next is calling you a prick and hitting you violently.

A scene within the maze

Photo: Muddled Marauders

You’d be wandering again and enter a surreal restaurant with tiny tables ready for your first date - the whole thing was designed to be really awkward. Couples therapy was one of the best bits. All of it within the context of the maze, along with the hysteria of the night, had this punchy impact that resonated a lot with people.

IR: It seems like you were doing your own version of a You Me Bum Bum Train experience…

Nathan: I think Bum Bum Train is the best in the business, and their production is essentially a giant maze. I strongly believe that the more labyrinthine the structure, the more the participants will get enveloped in whatever experience they are going through. Being isolated from other people you know during an experience also heightens it 10 times over. I wouldn’t personally compare what I’ve done to YMBBT, given how big and good they are, but we share views on what creates impact.

Set builders working on the entrance to the 800-metre long maze

Photo: Muddled Marauders

IR: Are there any other events you created around that time that stick out?

Nathan: 'Never Have We Ever', which was in a huge abandoned school in Poplar, sticks out. There was also one in an empty hotel and another in a care home, which were pretty memorable.

The best one we did was in three internally conjoined mansions in Islington. We commissioned and gave individual rooms to people with different ideas they had pitched, which they then brought to life. This created a fusion between festival, immersive experience and party - but with a distinctly debauched, underground London feeling.

It was so big and mazy that we gave people an A3 map when they arrived to help them navigate it. I remember it being incredibly difficult to figure out how to leave, and often people just gave up trying. It went on for two days and was a real melting pot of the different cultures existing in London at that time. It also birthed Burt - a fictional Head of Promotions for Muddled Marauders who hates his job, which we made using stop-motion animation. Burt became a staple of the brand.

Video: Muddled Marauders

I think we reached the limit of how far we could push the format within the constraints of off-grid events with that particular production. Due to them being unlicensed events and the fact that the majority of the buildings we’d acquired were squatted, the amount of time and financial investment that would go into them wasn’t sustainable when there was always the risk of the police shutting it down before it started and not being able to make any of that money back, even if we were lucky that this only happened once.

IR: One of the things I imagine you took away from creating all of those off-grid shows was the ability to make something out of nothing and overcoming unexpected problems. Would you say that was a good training ground for where you are now?

Nathan: Yeah, they were pretty hardcore, and we constantly felt like we were trying to achieve something impossible. It needed pretty militant production skills, all the while trying to retain the focus on developing a fluffy and mysterious identity with actors and storylines.

We've always had a strong team; Muddled Marauders stalwarts such as Joe Brann and James Phillips (Ariel Bold) have worked on pretty much everything, alongside an always massive crew that bring it all together. It makes unexpected problems much easier to overcome when you have a load of ride-or-die partners.

Preparations for a party in an abandoned school in Poplar

Photo: Muddled Marauders

IR: When did the idea for Vegetables first come to you?

Nathan: At a certain point, I got burnt out, so I moved to Sicily for about 8 months, living on a farm where I fed chickens. While out there, I started writing some scripts and concepts to form the basis of a transition into pure immersive theatre, and Vegetables was one of them.

I finished the first draft and spoke to this Brixton-based company called BOSI, who suggested applying for Arts Council DYCP [Develop Your Creative Practice] funding, which was successful.

I started refining Vegetables with Dan Wye - a drag performer (Séayoncé), stand-up comic and dramaturg. He was brutally honest, and it was such a steep learning curve. We completely rejigged it all, and I'd say he categorically made me a much better writer. Tom Duthie also really helped with the final edit of the script once we got the main project grant from ACE.

IR: For those who didn’t attend Vegetables, how would you describe it?

Nathan: It was a really dark comedy set within the underground tunnels of an old fire station in Central London. I don’t particularly enjoy describing the story itself, but the aim was to create something that people didn’t realise was theatre - let alone a comedy - until well into the experience. Lots of people knew they were coming to some kind of show, but many didn’t (including my mother), and the team and I took great pleasure in fucking with people’s expectations with the help of the incredible actors and design team led by Ellie Koslowsky (who was nominated at the Stage Debut Awards for Vegetables). 11 people could experience it per show.

In terms of influences, Charlie Kaufman, Julia Davis, and Black Mirror were the primary ones. Ultimately I wanted it to be unhinged, subversive and well executed.

Vegetables

Photo: Muddled Marauders

IR: There was also a community outreach aspect to the show that I think people might not be aware of. Can you tell us about that?

Nathan: Yeah. The venue, which was an old fire station in Clerkenwell, was previously occupied by the Museum of Homelessness and The Outside Project, which offers shelter for LGBTQI+ people with lived experience of homelessness in London.

We had an outreach strategy led by our producer and Museum of Homelessness founding member, B.Lain, and we allocated a third of the tickets to that community. The idea was to create a show that this community felt empowered to go to. A lot of communities don’t feel like the traditional, or even mainstream immersive theatre world is accessible, so by doing it in that space, it allowed us to flip that a bit.

We also had workshops as part of the show at the Old Diorama on set design, acting, and sound design, and the products of those workshops were integrated into the show itself. The attendees of all those workshops had lived experience of homelessness.

Clerkenwell Fire Station, the former home of Museum of Homelessness and The Outside Project

Photo: Muddled Marauders

IR: When Vegetables was first announced, there was real secrecy around it. By and large within immersive theatre, especially post-COVID, that seems to have been left behind as it feels more financially risky. Where did the desire to be secretive about what the show's content and story come from?

Nathan: You only really get those hairs that stand up on your neck when you go into something a bit blind or when there are surprises. Whether that’s achieved or not, I'd rather prioritise the experiences of those who are willing to take a chance on something than put out a trailer that puts a wet flannel on it all just to appease incurious people.

This isn’t to say that I don’t believe in marketing or an online presence. I love the science of marketing; I just prefer having fun with it and using it to add to the world of the production, like with Burt. For Vegetables, the Clerkenwell Bio Botanics website we used to entice people to the show took a serious amount of time to plan and build, but it worked despite at no point revealing it was secretly drawing people into a theatre show. I’m interested in pushing this side of things further.

Vegetables

Photo: Annie Tobin

IR: In the last year, we've seen a few crowdfunders launched for various immersive shows, which reflects the fact that, obviously, getting funding for any theatre project is hard at the moment. If people are in a similar position to you and are looking to secure Arts Council funding, what advice would you give?

Nathan: I think finding the right bid writer is important. I worked with an incredible bid writer and theatre-maker called Rosa Thomas, who was so invested in the project but also knew Arts Council funding applications like the back of her hand. I'm good with formal writing, but I have no doubt that I would not have gotten the funding without her. The first draft should come from you, but definitely do it with someone else.

The second thing is to not be overly disheartened by the narrative around Arts Council. Even though there's less funding available overall, there is an impetus for them to fund new, grassroots projects and practitioners.

IR: You mentioned earlier doing workshops as part of Vegetables, and you’ve also previously worked with the Museum of Homelessness. Can you tell us a bit about why doing outreach is so important to you and the company?

Nathan: We live in a broken society, and we need to look out for each other. As much as I try to keep Muddled Marauders a bit aloof, it's crucial that everything we do is welcoming and approachable to those who are vulnerable, in whatever capacity. Particularly with how much of a shitshow everything is. This has been the case so far, and I’m determined for it to continue.

As for the Museum of Homelessness, they're an incredible charity run by activists and creative pioneers, and we're long-term collaborators. They’ve now got a physical museum in Finsbury Park, and their second exhibition has just opened. As with last year, we've contributed a recurring fictional pirate radio show called Riot FM to that exhibition.

Previously we designed an award-winning immersive show for them called Secret Museum, which explored the stories of those who experienced homelessness during the pandemic. We took stories donated to the museum and left clues and installations throughout the streets of Waterloo, culminating in guests finding our physical pop-up museum with live performances of those stories, told verbatim.

Secret Museum by Museum of Homeless

Photo: Museum of Homelessness

IR: Looking to the future, what are you working on now?

Nathan: I’m currently on the Senior Production Team for the current iteration of You Me Bum Bum Train. Muddled Marauders has taken a temporary side seat while I've been working on that, but it's been worth it. Next up for Muddled Marauders is our new show, which I am extremely excited about, but that’s all I can say for now. We’re also fundraising for the company's next chapter, as we’re looking to make some chunky steps forward.

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Find out more about Muddled Marauders at muddledmarauders.co.uk or via their Instagram.

You Me Bum Bum Train are currently fundraising for War Child with a prize draw to win tickets to the show, which can be entered here.

You can donate to Museum of Homelessness here, and The Outside Project here.