This show will change your life

Meet the creators of You Me Bum Bum Train, the mind-blowing experience steaming into the West End

- RICHARD GODWIN

It is fiendishly difficult to describe You Me Bum Bum Train, the cult interactive experience that is returning to London this week after an eight-year absence. Kate Bond, the co-creator, likens it to a blue whale: "It's much bigger than you. You're in awe of this creature. But you're also terrified of it." Which may or may not be helpful.

Technically, I suppose, it's theatre. Audience members are guided through a cascade of scenes, populated with hundreds of actors and extras following something approaching a script. The Times listed it among the "best plays" of the 21st century. But Bond and her collaborator Morgan Lloyd, who met while studying illustration in Brighton University, have no background in theatre nor much interest in it. "I don't really go to the theatre. It makes me feel claustrophobic," says Bond. She cites the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and the absurdist comedian Hans Teeuwen as more formative influences.

Another point of comparison might be Punchdrunk, Shunt or similar immersive theatre companies that exploded in the Noughties, but this rather underplays the level of interaction on offer. The difference between, say, Secret Cinema and You Me Bum Bum Train is a bit like the difference between watching a TV programme about drugs and actually taking drugs yourself. As for what actually happens in the show? Well, sorry, I've had to sign a slightly scary non-disclosure agreement which means I can't tell you any details at all other than the fact that 77 "passengers" will take the Bum Bum Train each night in a secret West End location.

I'm not even supposed to tell you about the You Me Bum Bum Train show I saw 12 years ago, when the company took over an abandoned shopping centre near the Olympics site in Stratford. But what I can say is that it was the best thing I've ever seen in London - or anywhere else for that matter.