The Third Day: how the theatre company Punchdrunk is shaking up TV

“We thought: how can we break the rules of television? And the practical, hard fourth wall of the TV screen – how can that be smashed open?” Felix Barrett, the founder and artistic director of Punchdrunk, is discussing his theatre company’s first foray into television, The Third Day. True to type, the group’s contribution to the programme is set to break a few rules.

The programme is divided into three seasons. In the first instalment, which is available to catch up now, Sam (Jude Law) finds himself stranded on the tidal island of Osea, Essex, at the height of summer, among a close-knit community. The third instalment sees Helen (Naomie Harris), another outsider from the city, setting out for Osea in the winter with her daughters, and being greeted with hostility on the island. The Punchdrunk as-live event, named Autumn, offers a transition between the two seasons, in the form of a festival on Osea. “We’re visiting three different periods of time in Osea life, and almost three different stories,” says Barrett. “But taken as a whole, they interconnect.” With Autumn being filmed and broadcast in one as-live take, it is a brave undertaking by any measure.

Stemming from a production company seeking to make a behind-the-scenes TV documentary about Punchdrunk, the seeds of this idea were sowed several years ago. The perennially puckish Barrett found this a “very dry” approach and suggested instead working on a more collaborative idea that could mesh the worlds of television and theatre. He sought out writer Dennis Kelly to come up with a screenplay “because he straddles those two universes”. Indeed, as admirers of his singular work might have expected, Kelly has come up with something truly original, with an odd tone that’s all his own – dreamlike yet earthy, confusing and disturbing. The programme is full of a woozy beauty, captured by director Marc Munden, which makes the very real island of Osea into a kind of fantasy – or walking nightmare.

Founded 20 years ago, Punchdrunk’s immersive theatrical experiences have seen audiences pack out army barracks, a gin distillery and more than one mansion. The Third Day is its first work for television, but the spirit of experimentation lives on. Barrett is the show’s co-creator and has exercised his creative influence throughout the series, but it’s in Autumn, due to broadcast on 3 October, that Punchdrunk fully takes the reins. “The broadcast will feature Jude Law along with other members of the cast: there’ll be moments of suspense, intrigue and surprise over the course of the day,” says Barrett, who also promises “moments of debauchery”. He adds: “We’ll have all the islanders in full festival regalia for this mythic, earthy coming-of-age ritual. It will look extraordinary.”

You’d be forgiven for assuming that this as-live broadcast, with all the meticulous planning it would require, had been in the works for years. But it’s actually the result of a very recent – and very 2020 – curveball. The original plan was, as in the shows that made Punchdrunk’s reputation, to create an immersive theatrical experience that viewers could experience first-hand – but it soon became apparent that Barrett and his collaborators needed a radical rethink.

The original plans had been enormous: the creators contemplated getting up to 10,000 visitors to attend the live festival, but it transpired that the causeway linking Osea to the mainland couldn’t stand the pressure. Then Covid-19 struck – “and during lockdown it looked like nine years of work, the whole live element, would have to go away”, says Barrett. “But we decided we had to fight. The idea became: we still mount the event, but because we can’t have a live audience we will replace all those thousands of people with an audience of one – a roaming, one-shot camera, documenting the full 12 hours of the show.”

Related: ‘Like a mystical world!’: welcome to Osea, the enigmatic home of Sky’s The Third Day

Barrett sees the silver lining in having to adapt the original idea: “It’ll still be the same event, with the cast acting out a solid 12-hour as-live show, the crazy arc of one day. The show is as is – but what’s different now is it’s actually more accessible to a wider audience.” Trust the theatre man to deliver a much needed dose of “the show must go on”.

The event is an intriguing concept for the programme, which could work as both a peak in the programme, and act as a suitable transition period into Harris’s season, which has an altogether more disquieting and searching atmosphere: Punchdrunk’s challenge is to straddle these universes, along with a recurring cast including Katherine Waterston, Paddy Considine and an enjoyably foul-mouthed Emily Watson.

The Third Day is a hugely ambitious drama, which weaves folk story, personal drama, horror, grief and political commentary into one suspenseful, unique, hallucinatory experience. Knowing that the first series is followed by an extraordinary event that has not happened yet only adds to the creeping uncertainty and febrile tension of the show. It would be a surprise if Barrett and his collaborators stopped there, as the programme holds so much brazen confidence in the power of experimentation. Perhaps Osea will be due another visit after Covid-19 has washed away from these islands.

The Third Day is available now on Sky