Ghost Orchid is an immersive audio play which was performed for the first time at Burdall’s Yard in Bath as a shared binaural in-headphone event as part of the Bath Digital Festival fringe 2026. Set in a close-knit rural community in the West of England, the play explores how trauma echoes down the generations of a farming family. It explores the themes of belonging, loyalty, and the fragility and resilience of nature. 

We wanted to experiment with how well we could create a sense of place and authenticity by recording the audio ambisonically on location. A further layer of immersion was added at the final event by using theatrical elements of set and lighting with the audience listening together while sitting around tables. 

The immersive environment created at Burdall’s Yard. Photo Credit: Edward J Felton

As writer and producer of Ghost Orchid, I was involved all the way through the process from conception to delivery but there was a huge amount of creative input from others, including Liz Felton as director, Jan Meinema as sound designer and Aisha Ali as composer.  

Unlike a typical audio play that is recorded in a studio with atmos and sound effects added in post-production, Ghost Orchid was recorded using microphones that record 360 sound, with a full cast on location in a real forest and kitchen.  Some specific sound effects, such as thunder, were added later, but during the location recording, the actors moved around the spaces with the microphones picking up the directions of their entrances and exits, and how close or far away they were. The recording schedule was carefully planned so that we recorded in the forest at the correct times of day in order to have the right level and type of birdsong e.g. morning, dusk chorus and nighttime, with the aim of giving the piece authenticity and a real sense of immersion. 

I wrote the first draft of Ghost Orchid in the first Covid lockdown when we were only allowed outside for an hour a day during that long, gloriously sunny Spring of 2020. With very little traffic or aeroplane noise, the sound of the birdsong was heightened in the brief periods when I was able to roam around the woods near my home in North Somerset. The play was conceived partly as an antidote to the hatred that was being stirred up by the process of Brexit, but I found the germ of the idea for the story a few months prior to lockdown, when I heard a radio programme that described the extraordinary lifecycle of the European Ghost Orchid.  

Further research uncovered a cyclical history of this incredible plant; a young girl or woman would find a bloom by chance when walking in a beech forest. They would often pick the flower or paint it but do no harm to the actual plant, a rhizome living in the root of the tree under which it was found. Later a male botanist would typically hear of their discovery, find the plant and dig it up either to transplant it or just keep it in their collection; either way, the plant would die.  Often decades pass between sightings, but the Ghost Orchid, Britain’s rarest plant persists surviving deep in the beech forests.  

This struck me as a powerful metaphor for both fragility and resilience. Like many others, I along with some of my female friends and members of our extended families have experienced sexual assault or rape. It is still very much a hidden crime with the vast majority of incidents going unreported and the survivors left to get on with their lives as best they can. Some of these issues are explored through the story of Liz, one of four strong female characters in the play. 

Ghost Orchid was originally written as a stage play and performed at the Mission Theatre in Bath as part of SparkFest 2023, produced by Agapanthus Productions. To help with the process of adapting it to an audio piece, Timothy X Atack, was brought in as script consultant. He enabled me to rethink the play as something that was not tied to two locations but could move up and down stairs, in and out of the farmhouse and through the forest. Also, to consider how to alter the framing of some of the visual elements within the stage play, like the Atlas used for pressing flowers, in a way that made sense on an audio level but was not expositional. 

Jan Meinema, the sound designer, relished that challenge of recording the piece on location, something that is rarely if ever done with audio dramas. It made the recording process much more complex and expensive, but our hope was that it would also make it much more authentic and immersive. We carried out an initial test record in the Autumn of 2025 outside in a wooded area of the Newton Park Campus at Bath Spa University. Jan used two high quality ambisonic microphones for the main recording plus a set of binaural ears for safety and to give him options in the edit. He also used two lower spec ambisonic mics to record outlying sounds of actors coming and going or whispering comments when hiding in the forest. In addition, each actor had a lapel (lavalier) mic, as back up in case any of the dialogue was not picked up clearly enough.  The test record went well and confirmed the superior spatialised quality of the audio when recorded on location. 

Jan Meinema on location with ambisonic and binaural microphones. Photo credit: Edward J Felton

Initially we considered hiring someone with experience of directing radio dramas for Ghost Orchid but after the test record, we realised that it was important to have someone who understood how to direct actors spatially. Liz Felton, an experienced theatre director and writer, joined in January 2026 as director. She was excited by the idea of working with spatialised audio. 

The casting took place in February and early March 2026 and we focused on choosing to cast actors whose voices worked together. For authenticity, where possible, we cast actors who had grown up in the West Country to play the farming family. Rehearsal time was limited to one day with the full cast, and we only had three days to record over one hour of script. It was a very tight turn around for a location audio record and something that would be impossible for a location film shoot. The forest scenes, were recording in some remote woodland outside of Bath. From an audio perspective it was great with very little traffic noise, apart from a few aeroplanes, plus mature woodland, and reasonable access from the road but difficult logistically with no amenities on site. 

Recording on location in woodland. Photo credit: Edward J Felton

We recorded the interior and farmyard scenes at Bath Spa University’s Corsham Court Campus. We were able to record in a kitchen area but had to cheat scenes like going up and down stairs or in and out of the farmhouse – something that created challenges in the edit. The location was generally very quiet, apart from the peacocks, who were in full voice, and ruined several takes. 

Cast, crew and peacock at Corsham Court. Photo credit: Edward J Felton

While the locations did not have to look real, they had to sound real so we had to provide lots of props including wooden chairs to scrape across a tile floor, keys to drop, a saucepan of ‘soup’  to slurp, biscuits to crunch, kettles to boil and coffee to drink. 

Recording on location at Corsham Court with props. Photo credit: Edward J. Felton

Sound designer, Jan Meinema, and director, Liz Felton, worked together on the editing process. It was incredibly complex, painstaking and time consuming. Cutting in and out of a long take is difficult, but was necessary in order to combine the best audio quality with the best takes, and to ensure the pacing and levels were correct. Sound effects and music also had to be layered in and, critically, the spatialised aspects had to make sense both physically and in terms of the story.  

The performances took place at Burdall’s Yard, a small performance venue in Bath with a bar area, gallery and performance space. One of the limitations of creating an in-headphone sharing event was the number of headphones available. We had 26 headphones linked to silent disco-style receivers, which limited the audience numbers for each performance, so we chose to do three events across one day. We had one day prior to the performances to set up all the tech and create and dress the set. Naomi Smyth’s concept for the set was to create a mix of forest and farmhouse with place settings on each table giving clues to the personalities and back stories of the different characters within the play. The lighting by Isabel Potter helped differentiate between the forest and farmhouse locations and indicate time of day.  

Audience listening to Ghost Orchid at Burdall’s Yard. Photo credit: Elizeta Pylioti

We were unsure how the audience would react to this unusual blend of theatre and listening event, so, as part of the research, a survey was conducted after the performances. The audience feedback was very positive in terms of how immersive they found the piece with 92.5% feeling that they were inside the world of the play, and 95% that the recorded elements (the woods, the farmhouse) felt like real places. The response to it being an in-headphone shared experience was more mixed with 55% saying they would have preferred to listen on their own at home. However, 80% thought that the set and lighting in the room helped them into the world of the play and only 15% thought listening with other people detracted from their experience. 100% said they would come to another listening event like this.  

Going forward, we hope to tour Ghost Orchid to small rural venues in the West Country with a pared back set and lighting. Trialing an ambisonic version of the play using a speaker rig with people listening together without headphones is also an option. This project was very much an experiment, being as far as I am aware, a unique blend of shared binaural in-headphone narrative experience within an immersive theatrical setting. I was very happy with the authenticity the spatiaised  location recording brought to the audio, with how the set and lighting complemented the experience and with the audience response. It has opened my ears to the possibilities of using spatialised sound in storytelling, and I am keen to experiment more with it in the future. 

Ghost Orchid was commissioned by Dr Ruth Farrar, of Bath Spa University, as part of the Immersive Audio research strand within the MyWorld, a large multi-partner UKRI, Strength in Places funded programme to promote the innovative use of creative technology across the Bath and Bristol area, in association with Agapanthus Productions. For a full list of cast and crew please follow this link: Ghost Orchid – immersive audio play – The Studio 

I have worked as a dramaturg and theatre maker for over 20 years, spending my life thinking about how to create stories for  audiences to lose themselves in. My professional toolbox is full of ways to develop the dramaturgy of an experience. Yet, in my new research project, I have had to put most of my previous experience and usual tools aside.

For 10 years, I witnessed my father’s experience with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and felt  the helplessness that comes with a condition with no known cure. I came across a chapter in a book which mentioned that mental imagery, and in particular motor imagery, was being explored as a tool to address common issues, such as freezing gait that people with PD experience. It happens when the brain’s messaging system to the body is disrupted and it leads to people grounding to a halt. Through engaging their mental motor imagery, patients can work around these disrupted neural connections and get their body moving again.  

At the time, I was working on a piece of immersive audio theatre called Reassembled Slightly Askew (RSA)[1] by Shannon Yee, which utilised binaural audio to place the audience within the body of Shannon as she falls ill with a rare brain infection, experiences the surgery and travels the long road to recovery with an acquired brain injury. My work as a dramaturg in this project was focused on how we helped our audiences create the right mental imagery for the story by combining text and sound design. The impact of the final production on its audience was powerful and very visceral and it sparked an idea for me in this new context.

The combination of the chapter on Parkinson’s and mental imagery and the experience of working with immersive audio made me feel that maybe I could contribute towards making my father’s life a bit better after all. I started to explore the possibility of a project using immersive audio for people like Dad. I wanted to create stories that transport them away from the lived reality of the illness, whilst engaging their motor imagery in the ways suggested by the research to keep the messaging routes open and active in their mind and bodies. 

Stephen Beggs as the nurse looking after audiences at Reassembled Slightly Askew UK tour 2017. Credit: Photo Michael Mutch, Northern Echo

Years later, this grew into my practice-based PhD project Worldbuilders and the research question: Can artistically developed immersive audio stories be a tool for engaging people, living with Parkinson’s disease, in developing their mental imagery skills whilst being transported by a story? Now, I am experimenting with different combinations of what we can learn from ongoing research using mental and motor imagery for therapy and rehabilitation, anecdotal evidence from people living with Parkinson’s and the extraordinary ways in which binaural sound communicates with our mind within immersive audio stories.

There are many aspects to consider when creating these experiences; audio techniques, immersive world-building, technologies and delivery and facilitation of the experience that fit within the arts and health field. However, in this article I will focus on some key learning points and avenues I am exploring from a writer’s perspective.

 Characters to narrator

The ‘stage space’ and the fictional world in immersive audio is inside the mind of the audience member who in turn is located at the centre of that world. One of the first major things to consider was mode of address. Who am I to the listener? How will the narrator address them? Where am I? Who are they in the imaginary world? What are the relationships between character, narrator and me as the writer? To make immersive audio fully effective, the audience needs to listen through headphones. The narrator’s voice is therefore placed snugly, and intimately, in the listeners ears. It required a change to my normal workflow, iteratively writing, recording and listening. I paid close attention to what kind of mental imagery the different mode of address created when heard through headphones. After several experiments exploring 1st person and 2nd person perspective, with some unfortunate accidents where I ended up with empty bodies moving around my stories with no subjective agency, I settled on 2nd person as the mode of address. In the headphones that felt right.  

The next step was to look at narrative distance and tense. I learnt it is incredibly easy to slip into the habits belonging to writing in 1st and 3rd person even when deliberately setting out to write 2nd person. I needed to anchor my listener/participant within the fictional immersive world in the here and now. I needed a very present sense of presence. However, I still needed to clarify who the ‘you’ is that is being addressed.

 Being yourself, vs being someone else

In Reassembled Slightly Askew, as in many other immersive experiences, stories and games, we were asking audience members to inhabit the body of someone else. In some immersive stories this could be either a fictional character or one based on someone’s experience. In RSA, our audience was in the body and experience of Shannon, and the sonic world was created from her perspective to share the particular sensory experience of what happened to Shannon. As an audience, you were not asked to do anything but perceive, listen, feel and imagine being Shannon.

However, that was not my task in hand. My task was to create bespoke audio stories for people whose motivation is primarily to see what the experience can do for them in the context of living with a progressive illness. It was clear that the main difference in Worldbuilders is that my audiences enter the experience as themselves. From the medical research into mental imagery for Parkinson’s, I knew that my audience had to imagine their own bodies within the story being physiologically active and reactive within the immersive world through all the senses, but most importantly proprioceptively and kinaesthetically.

Therefore, I needed to connect my audiences’ own motivations for participating in the experience, their physiological self as well as their own subjectively felt dramatic stakes: their illness. The stories needed 1st person pov (point of view) sensory and motor imagery detail and instructions to work in conjunction with the 2nd person pov narration. A crucial element to achieve this was to fold sensory and motor imagery and instruction into the stories but without losing pace and flow. I had to let go of my ways of working from theatre and create a new type of dramaturgy for Worldbuilders, which would facilitate the participant’s motivations, stakes and perspectives within the fictional, sonic world I was creating whilst giving them hidden tasks to do with their minds and bodies. I began exploring the dramaturgical requirements of co-creation. 

 Co-creation

To create a narrative for co-creation, I needed to provide story details such as a location, an action and a loosely set task, while leaving enough space for the listener to make their own decisions about what the task means to them. Addressing my listener as ‘you’ proved very helpful and I found that the listener needed more room to make decisions than in prose writing, but less so than in stage writing.

I ran into challenges all the time. Creating backstory without too much specific detail yet carrying emotional story impact was tricky. When working in an arts and health project, it is key to avoid inducing heightened adrenaline states. This wipes out 80% of what we know about dramatic stakes. 

Another hurdle was being able to create scenes where other characters are speaking to you – the listener/protagonist – without your feeling the need to answer.  If you record a voice that is representing your participant’s voice and thoughts, you immediately disrupt the hard-won subjective sense of self. The recorded voices’ accent, age, gender may get in the way for the participant in their task to maintain a sense of presence. I gave this function to the narrator which was an enjoyable experiment but quite limiting.

When mixing the audio, the key was to think through where within the sonic world to place certain sounds; the narrator versus any internal character noises or thoughts; where in the sonic space to place present tense emotions, any memories or thoughts? I am also experimenting with creating motor-focused sounds. With the aim to catalyse their feeling the space and their own movements within it through sounds rather than solely relying on words and the narrator.

A visual representation of the spatialization of different sounds within the sonic world.  Credit: created by Hanna Slattne in Miro using graphics by Andre from Noun Project.

The big question remains; can immersive audio stories transport the listener in the way that novels, plays and screen stories do while simultaneously asking them to work intensely with their mind/body connection within an immersive imaginary world? I am still not sure either way yet. However, I am learning a lot about audio story dramaturgy in the process and am trying things I would never have done had I not given myself this challenge. 

In the next part of my research, I am running consultations with people living with Parkinson’s disease to hear more about how to aid them in connecting their mind and body, how to tap into the memories of moving freely and to incorporate that into stories and experiences. In a way, I am asking them to co-create with themselves – with their minds, memories and imaginations. Is it possible to build up motor imagery skills from the comfort of your own armchair, without it feeling like a clinical exercise? Might working with your imagination in this way, genuinely enhance a sense of wellbeing? Most importantly, can we develop practical and usable tools to help them through the moments when freezing gait stops them in their track?  All while escaping from the world for a brief moment, through the magic of audio and story.

If you are interested in these questions and ideas, I would love to hear from you. Please contact hslattne01@qub.ac.uk 

[1] Reassembled Slightly Askew was written by Shannon Yee and created in collaboration with director Anna Newell, sound designer Paul Stapleton, Choreographer Stevie Prickett and dramaturg Hanna Slattne. For more information visit: http://reassembled.co.uk