Oil City[1] was a piece of site-specific theatre made by Platform for the financial district of London. A spy-thriller for the post-Occupy era, it invited audiences to explore the exclusive stages of one of the world’s most influential financial sectors in an undercover performance exploring corporate malpractice in UK finance for the controversial Canadian tar sands.

Raising questions of where the factual story ends and the fictional begins, with every passerby a potential character in the story, Oil City had audiences of six people per performance, with three shows per day for two weeks. This video is taken from one performance and shows the audience journey and interactions – which made each performance different from the one before. Partly filmed using spy cameras and CCTV footage obtained afterward, the video seeks to capture a flavour of the theatre piece to share with wider audiences.

Oil City was commissioned as part of Arts Admin[2]‘s Two Degrees[3] festival.

Oil City can also be explored via Platform’s interactive maps[4]

View Oil City in a larger map

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