Out of chaos come great cultural movements, according to the director and producer Danny Boyle, who will inflict a little curated chaos on London’s Southbank Centre with what has been described as an “epic, one-off pop culture spectacular”.
Boyle, whose 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony drew on the rich thread of British culture, is the co-creator and director of You Are Here, a one-day immersive theatrical event traversing 75 years of youth culture and social movement: think teddy boys, Lovers’ Rock, punk, Ziggy Stardust, rave, acid house, the spoken word, Brit pop, ballroom to name a few.
With 1,000 performers and more than 10,000 people expected to attend, the event on 3 May marks the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Royal Festival Hall for the postwar 1951 Festival of Britain and celebrates the role the Southbank Centre has played since in supporting youth culture.
Boyle, 69, who directed Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire and jokes he feels “embarrassed going on about [youth culture] because people associate me with it and I’m nearly dead”, said he wanted the experience to be an antidote to hi-tech curation of our lives today.
Referring to Bruce Springsteen’s 57 Channels (and Nothin’ On), Boyle said the problem today was “there are 5,000 channels with everything on”.
“I call this the aquarium of indifference because it is magnificent, like the greatest aquarium you have ever been in, and you sit and all these extraordinary things come into focus and then float by because they are replaced by another extraordinary magnificent thing. And it is wonderful. And you go, well is it nourishing or is it like Deliveroo’d food?
“I think in our small way this is our answer.”
You Are Here, the centrepiece of a year of anniversary celebrations created by leading voices across film, theatre, literature and fashion, will be neither pageant nor sit-down theatre. It is described as a journey through a reimagining and remixing of pivotal youth culture moments, aimed at all ages, and which will use the whole site as its backdrop.
The immersive show will be based around “five beats”, drawing on underground movements, club scenes, subcultural fashion, music and activism. Poets, MCs and rappers carry stories through the space, while choral voices and dancers translate them into sound and movement, “threading a kaleidoscopic narrative throughout the day”, organisers said.
There are no celebrity headliners, though surprises may happen on the day, they added.
Visitors may step from a high octane Northern Soul dancefloor to a communal house party; or move from mass participation dance to audiovisual responses to some of Britain’s most anarchic fashion and nightlife movements – each transition opening a window on to the nation’s ever-evolving identity.
It does sound somewhat chaotic. “Life is increasingly curated for us by these machines that we carry around, which makes us little offers, ‘now do you want me to organise this for you?’” Boyle said.
“And you want there to be an element of chaos in it, because all the great cultural movements came out of that kind of chaos which frightens everybody, and then years later you realise that was wonderful.
“It is ironic because we are curators, but you want them to feel that they have bumped into some chaos that will inspire them.”
Describing the Southbank as “a gargantuan labyrinth of opportunity”, he said the “whole world should be heading to the Southbank”.
“But the most important person probably isn’t here yet. It’s that young person we all know because we’ve been them, probably, because of where we ended up in the arts. We all know them. That sense of unhappiness, dissatisfaction, maybe even anger with what is on offer. Where do you put that feeling? How do you manifest it really? And this place is the opportunity to do that, to do something, if you don’t just want to watch the aquarium of indifference at home with your Deliveroo’d food. So it is that young person we wanted to focus on.”
You Are Here takes place on Sunday 3 May 2026. Tickets are available at www.southbankcentre.co.uk.
