One Foot in the Void

‘They own nothing. Everything that they have is borrowed, including all material objects, names, traits, traumas and successes, each to be returned at a later date. Together, they go about auditing all of it, crunching ever further through a boundless store of borrowed things, endlessly checking due dates and arranging for later replacements, until three messages arrive, one of which declares them winner of a competition for anything whatever. This completely reverses their position. Now, they entirely own anything, and must keep care of all its countless parts, lest something of it breaks, and they are forced back into debt.’

One Foot in the Void, part 1, is an Arts Council funded, draft-stage pilot episode for a series of audio plays written and directed by E Elia. Each episode blends a unique form of absurdist, choral dialogue with the familiar tropes of the traditional British sitcom, immersing audiences in delirious, character driven explorations of elemental social, scientific and philosophical ideas.

In producing the pilot episode, Elia collaborated with electronic and acoustic sound artists Cameron Naylor and Philip Avierinos, and actors Ellie Jones and Giles Coram, to craft the play into a richly detailed binaural experience, which transports listeners into a fabulous hyperreality of intangible desires made flesh.