A co-production by the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) and Taipei Performing Arts Center (TPAC), Bat Night Market offers an innovative and unusual approach to science education; blending performance, interaction and food tastings into a multi-sensory experience. Visitors are invited to travel forwards in time, to a Taiwanese night market in an imagined future where the bat has become extinct. A collaboration between the show’s lead artists Robert Johnson and Kuang-Yi Ku, this immersive installation attempts to rehabilitate the bat from its status as the villain of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“You will need patience,” we are told, as we prepare to enter the time machine (i.e. climb the stairs) to the loud single-room space which hosts the market. This, in fact, proves even truer than the performer intends. Much like an actual bat, we seem to spend much of the night going in circles.

Although well-meaning, the actors seem under-rehearsed. There is an over-reliance on audience participation, with actors asking the same question to five or six reluctant audience members in a row: “Did you like the food?”; “Do you think humans deserve to live?” Meanwhile, the bat-themed games are playable by teams of three, while the rest of the group of twenty stands and watches, waiting their turn.

But for all its frustrations, Bat Night Market remains a memorable experience. The set channels the sci-fi night market concept brilliantly, with projected video graphics scrolling across industrial installations. The food, though only nominally bat-themed, is delicious. The bat facts are interesting, and the short interlude of interpretive dance at the end is genuinely moving. One imagines that with a little more time to echo-locate itself, this show would be a fabulous new take on environmental education. Here’s hoping it is given the chance to get there.

Playing at Science Gallery London, 10–15 June 2024.