Play that sends the audience to sleep - and then wakes them up for breakfast

It is probably the first show in stage history where the audience is actually supposed to fall asleep. Theatre company Duckie is to stage an all-night sleepover where ticket-holders arrive, change into their pyjamas and clamber into a single, double or even triple bed for a 90-minute show of "soothing storytelling and choral cradle song".

Less than eight hours later, the audience will be woken in time for breakfast. And at £42 a ticket, organisers stress it is cheaper than most budget hotels in central London. The members of Duckie, which received £152,171 of Arts Council funding this year, describe themselves as "purveyors of progressive working-class entertainment". The company won an Olivier Award for best entertainment six years ago for its edgy cabaret show, C'est Duckie, at the Barbican.



Simon Casson, the producer, said: "Every time I go to theatre I fall asleep. So I thought why don't we embrace that idea and make a show that deliberately sends people to sleep." The Barbican Pit theatre will be turned into a bedroom complete with beds and separate bathrooms for the ladies and the gents to brush their teeth. Then the performance, called Lullaby, will begin.

"It will reassure the audience, comfort the audience and be very, very cosy. It is the opposite of challenging," said Mr Casson. There has been a trend towards all-night culture with 24-hour booking for blockbuster shows such as Monet at the Royal Academy. However, Mr Casson thinks that is too exhausting. "I'm 42, I don't want to stay up all night," he said. Lullaby runs from June 24 to July 24 next year.