Have you ever imagined yourself as part of the story? Have you ever put yourself in the position of characters on the silver screen, on the stage or in the pages of a good book? Have you ever wished it was possible to experience one of the adventures that unfolds only in fiction?

Things are changing in the world, and entertainment is becoming more and more interactive. Computer games have made huge advances in giving people an experience of being at the centre of unfolding events. Pundits continue to make optimistic predictions about the advent of VR worlds.

The secret is, we don't need the technology. We don't need anything at all. When we were children, we all knew exactly how to place ourselves in the story, and we haven't really forgotten. All it takes is the ability to take on a role, to act out a part, and to be willing to use imagination.

Theatresports is very big in this country and we have a whole subset of young people who are comfortable with the idea of taking on a role and imagining the world around them. Game Theatre taps into the same ideas.

Many people have tried murder mystery dinner parties, pre-packaged evenings in which the guests dress up as characters from some period of history and take on roles to perform, trying to determine which among them is the killer. Game Theatre taps into the same ideas.

The Apocalypse weekend is a Game Theatre event. It extends and explores these ideas and takes them further still.

Game Theatre borrows heavily from improvisational theatre and from role-playing games and attempts to create something both accessible and sophisticated. A perfect example of Game Theatre from earlier this decade, and one particularly appropriate to this event, is the Alien War experience that ran in London around the years 1993-1995. Based on the Alien movies, punters forked out a few pounds to enter and were greeted by a heavily armed marine who explained that they were being evacuated from a scientific facility which had suffered a security breach. They were led through a door into a maze of apookily lit rooms and corridors, the marine shouting orders at everyone to keep moving, occasionally sighting one of the deadly creatures infesting the complex, facing scare after scare as some of those taking part were caught and dragged off by the huge aliens, until finally bursting exhausted with a pounding heart into the sunlight...

The idea of Game Theatre is that a theatrical performance is being created. The participants are all actors, performing established roles in a set, hopefully with music and lighting and costumes and all the other paraphenalia of the theatre. However, there are some important differences.

Firstly, the only audience is the performers themselves. There is no passive crowd watching the events unfolding; there are only the other performers, all of them glimpsing fragments of other characters' stories along with their own, each of them building up a unique experience of the story as it unfolds.

Secondly, there is no script. The action is improvised. Dialogue is made up as it happens, and there are no directions instructing a performer to take their character to this or that room to talk with this or that person. The performer decides everything that their character does, and then does it. They act to achieve their goals and react to the events that happen around them. There is no way to anticipate what will happen next.

Thirdly, there is a game layer. On one level the whole event is essentially a game, which is to say it involves people striving to achieve certain goals. The game layer manifests itself in things like the rules that are used to resolve any conflicts about what might happen next in the story (for example, if two performers want their characters to fight it out, who would win? The rules provide an answer) and the way the weekend will be structured to give characters an opportunity to face and overcome obstacles and to seek and perhaps achieve their goals.

Fourthly, the "director" has no control over the actor's performances and indeed over most of the events that occur. Those people who work to set up the game theatre event and to structure it over the weekend have no way to control how things happen; characters may become allies or enemies, opportunities may be seized or ignored, dangers might be avoided or fallen prey to. There is no one controlling the story; it is made up only of the cumulative actions of all the performers.

Fifthly, and most importantly, everyone is a central character. There are no supporting characters, no lesser roles; some characters are at the centre of the main events and some are more concerned with more peripheral activities, but all of them are in action all the time, and every action by every one of them will have an effect on the final outcome of the story.