Watching The Detectives

The Format: The six artists pages are full colour scans of a research file into The Department of Distractions. Typed pages, hand-written notes, flow diagrams of plot development (for a theatre show, or an adventure gamebook, or a story to be planted in the media?), paperclipped surveillance photos, architect/set designer's plans, ‘Instagram’ photos of The Department’s work, puzzles to solve.
Where It Comes From: The Department of Distractions is a theatre show by Third Angel that toured in the UK from 2017 – 2019, until interrupted by the pandemic. Unlike much of Third Angel’s work, The Department of Distractions appears to be a play, but really it is a devised show going undercover as a TV detective drama. The show presents us with the work of The Department, “an organisation so clandestine, you won’t have heard of them.” Their job is to plant stories in the world, to make it more interesting. And to distract us, the public, from what is really going on. They are undercover in real life, hiding in plain sight. They are clear that they “do not deceive the public, just refocus their attention”. The show nests several stories within a day-in-the-life of The Department, including a detective story, partly inspired by 1980s TV show Moonlighting, which circles back round to being the same day-in-the-office narrative. Because a member of the Department has been undercover in a story they are following, The Case of the Missing Traffic and Travel Announcer, who in turn (Spoiler Alert!) has gone undercover herself.
So What’s It About? The Department of Distractions was originally generated as two separate performance texts, under the title O Grande Livro dos Pequenos Detalhes (The Great Book of Tiny Details) for Má Criação (Portugal/Brazil). Bringing it back ‘in house’ to Third Angel, Kelly worked with dramaturg Stacey Sampson, co-director Rachael Walton and the rest of the company to integrate the two stories to create one complete plot. Watching The Detectives reflects on this experience: lessons learned about the plotting timelines, fixing plot-holes (that then has a knock-on effect 12 pages later), the inclusion of numerous red herrings and Easter Eggs as a stylistic and thematic device, and the difference between clues embedded in the text (that everyone therefore hears, whether they know it is a clue or not) and visual clues incorporated into the stage picture and action, that, because there isn’t a close up, the audience might not see. When is it good for an audience to know what they don’t know: our regular devising room conversations about Point Break, The Sixth Sense and a whole host of detective fiction.
In 2020 Third Angel are making a sequel to The Department, an experience that is delivered to the audience via their phones, computers and through their letterboxes, asking them to go undercover for the Department. We haven’t made that yet, but it is likely Watching The Detectives will draw on that process, too.