Sheer torture

Ever been to a ‘promenade performance’? Barmy, really. The audience is conducted through a makeshift theatre space — often a disused ironworks — where the show is performed in disjointed snatches amid atmospheric clutter. Invariably hopeless as drama, promenade shows can be revealing as social anthropology. They lay bare a secret that lies at the heart of theatrical life: actors loathe play-goers.