We are bundled into the back seat of a 4x4. As we pull away from the bustle of the Barbican, the radio plays People Are Strange by the Doors. Then, in a blizzard of static, the song is interrupted by fragments of news reports — and the news isn’t good: accounts of wartime atrocities, the aftermath of some apocalyptic attack and interruptions by a voice of poisonous smugness insisting that “in the place where the dogs lick the blood, they will lick your blood too”.

Clearly this is not a cosy evening’s theatre. But, despite the promisingly disorientating start, it doesn’t turn out to be especially terrifying or inspiring either. It’s the latest piece by Slung Low, a West Yorkshire-based collective of innovative theatre-makers, and, while it’s teasingly sensationalist, it never stops the heart or galvanises the mind.

Participants are split into groups of three. In the foyer of the Barbican Centre we don headphones and watch an introductory video in which a man, clad in black, eyes the camera with beady, Derren Brown-ish intensity and explains that Slung Low have failed to turn up. Instead, we’re to be treated to a night-time tour of London — for which we must carry a glow stick and wear a lamp strapped to our heads. Duly equipped by perma-smiling, garishly clad employees of City Night Tours, we are ushered into the waiting vehicle and a journey begins in which each of us stars in our very own horror movie. What happens next cannot be revealed because it must come as a surprise. Let’s just say that it involves trails of salt, conflicting voices offering unreliable guidance, and encounters with members of a rebel faction fighting the evil, blood-sucking entities to whom we are warned we may become prey.

The intention seems to be to create an analogy between supernatural and earthly violence, raising questions about the demonisation of the unknown or socially stigmatised Other. But the results are disappointing. They last only 35 minutes and, while the experience isn’t really scary — I’ve honestly been more frightened watching The Woman in Black — its attempts to spook us by exploiting cinematic shock techniques and narratives make it feel too glibly pop culture, too familiar for it to challenge our perceptions much.

Nor does the production itself, though highly technical, display the attention to the details evident in Slung Low’s previous output, or in that of other experimental companies such as Shunt and Punchdrunk. Maybe you’ll feel an occasional frisson of fear, but this is a frustratingly scant piece of work, and its effects are little more than momentary.

Box office: 0845 1207550. To Nov 15.

Then at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, Nov 23-28, 01484 430528.

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