Tonight:
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Art at the end of the tunnel in Kevin Spacey's Waterloo project
Louise Jury7 May 2009
In dark and creepy vaults under Waterloo station, Kevin Spacey is aiming to scare, perplex and thrill you.
His Old Vic team has taken over tunnels last used by British Rail more than 30 years ago to turn them into a cool new temporary venue for art and theatre.
The installation-cum-promenade performance kicks off tomorrow for 15 days in a spectacle inspired by Fritz Lang's 1927 silent science fiction film Metropolis. As in the movie, visitors are divided into the planners or thinkers who live above ground and the underclass of workers who inhabit the vaults, labouring to sustain their masters.
In a long-planned detail given added resonance by swine flu, all visitors will be issued with a protective mask on arrival before entering the vaults.
The project is a collaboration with the Young Vic and Punchdrunk, the theatre company famed for surreal experiences such as The Masque of the Red Death.
Spacey's team, led by producer Hamish Jenkinson, discovered the network of tunnels last year when Banksy and fellow artists used a nearby space, in Leake Street, for a short-lived graffiti art show.
The Hollywood star who runs the Old Vic theatre said: "Hamish and I started walking around and realised it was potentially an extraordinary performance space." What it offered was the chance to expand on one of Spacey's pet projects - the merger of the worlds of art and theatre. For the new work, called Tunnel 228 after British Rail's name for the space, eight performers will appear in roles such as the boss who takes some audience members apart for one-to-one chats and as the worker who walks upside down along the ceiling. The theatricals will take place alongside installations by artists such as Anthony Micallef, Doug Foster and Paul Fryer.
Ben Tyers, a Cambridge engineering graduate, has created a giant kinetic work featuring rolling balls, pendulums and toppling rows of books. "I think it fits quite well. The space is quite industrial," he said. Tunnel 228 is sponsored by Bloomberg and all 15,000 tickets are free. They have to be booked online for timed slots between 3pm and 10pm daily. If the venture takes off and Lambeth council permits a longer run, the show could return in the autumn.
Reader views (4)
looks identical to shunt, but then still fair credit
- Danny, London, 15/05/2009 17:23
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I think that this is an ingenious idea. What better way to make use of unused space and promote the arts than through this venue? I would love to see it if i didn't live worlds away. Congratulations Kevin Spacey on such an innovative venture! I will spread the word! 
- Merle Gornick, Hilo, HI USA, 15/05/2009 16:23
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I have been going to Shunt and this project look so similar. Have Kevin Spacey and Hamish Jenkinson been to the tunnels at London Bridge? Shunt have been doing this type of things for a really long time and this project is not the first to make use of this type of spaces. Even the pictures look like they could be in Shunt? Is this a coincidence?
- Paula Rodriguez, London, 15/05/2009 16:23
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Great idea - shame all the slots are already taken 
- Flo, London, UK, 15/05/2009 16:23
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