The rain is coming down hard in the courtyard of Hong Kong’s historic police station turned arts hub Tai Kwun , but Richard Crawford, the founder and artistic director of Secret Theatre , isn’t about to let the weather dampen his mood. “This is a summer’s day in Scotland,” says Crawford, wearing a brightly-coloured shirt and his trademark fedora. Crawford left his native Scotland 20 years ago and since then the 38-year-old has divided his time between London and New York and, during the past four years, spent a considerable amount of time in Hong Kong. He put on his first “immersive theatre” show – a style of theatre in which the audience is encouraged to wander around and interact with the cast – in 2015 and his latest production, which runs from September 17 to November 10 at Tai Kwun, will be his fourth in Hong Kong. Along the way he’s not only built up a steady following, he’s also made the shows a lot more local. “A lot of actors came to the shows and hung around at the end. They said, ‘I’m an actor, I’d love to be involved in this’. That was great to hear,” Crawford says. Hong Kong modelRosemary Vandenbroucke starred in the production’s previous show in the city, Project Mayhem , from 2017. This time around, most of the cast are from Hong Kong – 11 are local actors and three are from London. Beijing fans of Hong Kong film and Canto-pop hold parties to reminisce Local talent includes Hong Kong-born actors Kathy Mak and Reggie Yip and freelance actor and voice talent Mike Brooks, who has lived in Hong Kong for more than 30 years. “It is amazing for them. It is a London show and I have people from London working on it, but it’s also giving [Hong Kong actors] the opportunity to perform in something like this. It’s really great,” Crawford says. He recalls his teenage years in Scotland when international talent came to perform at the Edinburgh festival and his hunger to be part of that scene. “I slowly started getting work doing shows at the [Edinburgh] festival and it felt so great to be a part of that in my hometown, as opposed to being a voyeur watching cool things come in from around the world,” Crawford says. This year’s show is billed as being “Silence of the Lambs meets Black Mirror” and will be based around a serial killer. The police think they have their man, but is he really guilty? The show will be staged across several sites at the Tai Kwun heritage and arts development complex. Depending on whether you decide to splash out on the dinner show, the evening will either start at chef David Thompson’s Thai restaurant Aaharn or downstairs in the bar where the actors will mingle with audience members. One of Crawford’s favourite films is Silence of the Lambs , particularly the iconic interrogation scene between Jodie Foster (the FBI trainee) and Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lecter). And it’s not giving the game away to say that if you also enjoyed that cinematic moment, there will be an opportunity to conduct your own interrogation in a former prison cell in Tai Kwun. The line between audience members and the actors will become increasingly blurred as the evening progresses. It’s impossible to give a spoiler alert because the ending hasn’t been decided and won’t be until the night itself when the audience – who will all be sworn in by a judge on the night – makes the call. And that, for Crawford, is where the real magic lies. “The thing I love about this show is when we leave [the audience] and there’s this wonderful bit of theatre that’s nothing about actors – we’ve created a scenario which we hope is engaging enough that they go, ‘Let’s find him guilty’, or, ‘No, let’s look at the evidence’,” says Crawford, who admits to obsessing over the OJ Simpson trial. ‘I’ve spent almost all my time as an adult high on drugs. Travelling in Asia saved my life’ As with all Secret Theatre shows, audience members can choose to sit back and follow the action from a distance or get stuck in and really involved. In London, Crawford says lawyers in the audience wanted to roll up their shirt sleeves and get into the nitty gritty of the action and others wanted to fully explore the crime scenes. It’s a mammoth project to put on and working across multiple locations in a heritage site hasn’t been easy. “It’s a precious site, everything needs to be approved, including the measurements of a prop I’m using in a crime scene. It’s a deep process, there’s a lot of moving parts. But at the core of it, Tai Kwun [management] are very excited about having this show because it’s utilising these wonderful spaces and they’re glad to hear that most of my team are Hong Kong based,” Crawford says. Last month, watching the protests unfold in Hong Kong, he says he did hesitate about whether to go ahead with the show. He decided the show had to go on and, having been in Hong Kong for the past two weeks, he’s confident he made the right decision. “I’ve experienced working in the arts in uncertain times in London and New York – you are back on the stage, you don’t stop. People need it. We are bringing in business to Tai Kwun, people will come to the restaurant, the bar. It’s getting people out, a distraction and entertainment,” Crawford says. Secret Theatre, Sep 17 to Nov 10, Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Rd, Central, HK$788 (early bird), dinner and show from HK$1,288, special VIP experience ticket HK$1,788