Dante or Die, I Do review – Hotel show is an ingenious theatrical exercise in voyeurism

If you've ever dreamed of gatecrashing a stranger’s wedding, Dante Or Die’s immersive show I Do will let you fulfil that fantasy – and then some. This ingenious theatrical exercise in voyeurism first premiered 12 years ago. Now it’s back as part of the Barbican’s Scene Change festival, inviting its audience into six rooms at the nearby Malmaison hotel to spy on a wedding party as they prepare for the big day. It’s a chance to peer at wardrobe mishaps, secret snogs, and last-minute jitters in a witty, intimate look at love and commitment.

Site-specific performances have fallen from favour a bit in the decade since I Do premiered, as part of a boom in shows housed in unexpected venues. At its best, this production is a reminder of what theatre audiences are missing. It’s so much fun stepping behind a shower screen to spy on a hilariously neurotic best man (Manish Gandhi) practising his speech in the bathroom mirror, sink decked with beard clippings. Or squeezing at the foot of a bed naffly decked out with towel swans and red rose petals, watching the brooding groom Tunde (Dauda Ladejobi) shrug off his shirt. Or peering over the shoulder of a nervy bridesmaid Lizzy (Alice Brittain) to see two lines on a pregnancy test that’s hastily thrust out of the bride’s sight.

The cast strike a wonderful balance between ignoring the audience and having fun with us – playfully brushing past or crashing into the awkward interlopers in their cramped hotel rooms. Watching I Do is like being an errant ghost, trespassing into other peoples’ most intimate moments, guilt-free. When the groom puts his smartphone down on the bed, everyone unapologetically leans over to pore over his WhatsApp messages.

Dante or Die co-founders Daphna Attias and Terry O'Donovan have crafted something ingenious, here: a story divided into six parts that can be watched in any order, and are full of little clues and callbacks to other scenes. Nothing’s straightforward, and prospective newlyweds Georgina (Carla Langley) and Tunde are surrounded by fully fleshed out characters with complex perspectives on love and romance.

Will this nervy couple actually get married? And should they? Monogamy doesn’t look all that great through the eyes of bridesmaid Abigail (Tessie Orange-Turner), who’s trying to repair her failing marriage while chasing her indignant small daughter through the hotel’s corridors. And bride-to-be Georgina isn’t particularly inspired by the unromantic examples set by her angsty divorced mother Helen (Johanne Murdock) or her careworn grandmother Eileen (Fiona Watson), either. On a TV screen, a cheesy ad for cut-price wedding rings plays, in a clever reminder that marriages are financially as well as emotionally costly.

Still, if I Do is a masterclass in site-specific theatre in so many ways, it’s also a reminder of how fiddly and cumbersome the genre can be. Malmaison’s narrow corridors feel uncomfortably crowded with queues of waiting audience members. Some scenes are awkwardly cut short by ushers cheerily herding everyone along. It feels as though the tight restrictions of the space rob us of a big, celebratory-feeling ending, too.

But a good wedding guest never complains, even if their shapewear is itching, their feet are aching, and they’ve only eaten three snatched canapes since 9am. I Do has enough invention and ingenuity to sweep its audiences down the aisle – and show them that the most interesting bits of a wedding are the parts that would never, ever make it into a glossy photo album.

Until 8 February; tickets and information here