1884

Rhianna Ilube, Tsitsi Mareika Chirikure, Marie Klimis, Chloe Mashiter

Coney, Koro Theatre

HOME Manchester,

October 9,10, 2025; 2 hrs 30 mins

Yes, it's a theatre performance: the audience can get in on the action and play a board game in 1884. All pics Alex Brenner, representative of a typical performance

1884 isn't explicitly a story about the carving up of Africa by the European powers at the Berlin Conference in that year; in fact it doesn't feel like someone's presenting you with a story at all. It feels like a game, it feels like fun, like family, and later as if one has been profoundly double-crossed, misunderstood and lied about.

They say that history is written by the victors. By the end of 1884, you feel like someone else has told a story, but it wasn't the one you knew was happening at the time. That wasn't what we did, was it? We never said that. How did things become so twisted, and did we let that happen?

We enter the room to sit at a table with a number of other audience members, who become our "family". Throughout the first act we learn more about these strangers: what they like, where they've lived, their politics, languages, cultural preferences.

Some people talk too much, some don't want to participate, at times people annoy each other, and some even leave before the end. It's like a we're a real family, and by the end of the night, I care about all of them. Together we build a home, we write secret codes, invent festivals and activities, reveal much of our pasts and presents.

We make friends with the neighbours. We experience creativity, abundance and good times, and we endure oppression and hardships, wondering when we should speak up, take charge, or sit back and go along for the ride. We are invested in our family, our customs and our place.

So what happens when we lose control and our creative family spark is replaced by corporate diktat and standardised experiences? How do we feel as the iron fist tightens its grip? And what do we do about it?

We come back in Act 2 as time passes, and having been asked to keep Act 2 a secret, I'll leave the reveal for you to experience one day. It is an experience. 

As we exit the show, we're presented with a postcard with a QR code for a further, digital experience, which ties the show together with the reality of the Berlin Conference and the scramble for Africa; colonialism dressed up as anti-slavery and humanitarianism. If you want the history lesson it's there on the digital platform, still interactive, provocative, informative, and well worth a look. There are also a lot of audience reflections on the relevance of the show to colonial behaviour, the power of the state, and more immediate political and humanitarian concerns in the world.

1884 is a framework, whereby an audience is invited to join in, play a game, create a show, and reflect on what that might mean for history, for the world today and for humanity at large. See it through; it's a process.

The show cleverly reveals itself over time, bit by bit, each element of control building on the one before that we never saw coming. In the end, and with the benefit of hindsight, it's extremely powerful.

More info here