The Boy in the Book - Launched!
The interactive digital version of The Boy in the Book launched two months ago, and since then people from around the world have been following their own stories as they’ve tried to unravel the mysteries of Terence Prendergast’s diary.
The response has been greater than I could’ve hoped for - I’m grateful for all the positive feedback, and I want to say thank you if you’ve taken the time to dive into the experience. If you’ve enjoyed it, please consider sharing.
As the current situation continues to make live theatre impossible, I hope you find this project an immersive alternative. The main thread of the narrative is about coming through a difficult experience, and how you can find the strength to do so. If we put each other first, I hope the global situation will improve for us all.
The Boy in the Book has generated some good press too, here are a few quotes from recent pieces.
“When self-confessed ‘obsessive’ Nathan Penlington bought 106 second-hand copies of Choose Your Own Adventure books on eBay he thought he was just indulging a childhood passion. Little did he realise that when he found an extract from a troubling, hand-written diary inside one of them, it would set him off on a life-changing adventure of his own.” - BBC Arts - Culture in Quarantine
“An online interactive experience that blurs the lines between gaming and documentary filmmaking…there’s something about the intricate procrastination of The Boy in the Book that makes it feel like it was tailor-made for a lockdown. If there was ever a time to use multiple realities as a way to distract from our own, this is it.” - Time Out
“The discovery of diary pages inside an old inside an old Choose Your Own Adventure book sparks a choose-your-own-doc…probing, poignant - and free” - Total Film
"An immersive, fascinating experience which leads to a real emotional investment" - Starburst Magazine
“People say the books helped them think more about making decisions. Might our political leaders do worse than a crash course in the Packard oeuvre?” - Daily Telegraph
“Conflating fact with fiction, The Boy in the Book is a love letter to a forgotten genre that only stalwart fans could conjure up: life-affirming, celebratory, and devilishly constructed, the Choose Your Own Adventure-style production is like nothing else” - A Younger Theatre
“Sometimes the past should be left in the past, but this interactive style is a reminder of the importance of choice, and how sometimes you need to go back a little in order to push forward. I am now on a different path for Nathan, and I am hopeful that it will lead to a better outcome. If not, I can safely say I have no regrets – perhaps one day I can look at life with the same lens as well.” - Cultured Vultures
