Seated Tours: Costumes, Props and Stories

Take a seat and join our expert guides in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, a beautiful part of our theatre’s nearly 300-year history, for a relaxed 45-minute exploration, alongside ‘I Wish I Could Be Here: The Mirrorbox’ on 12 and 13 September.

Each session will feature tables filled with costumes, props and images from previous Royal Opera House productions. Your guides will lead each session, sharing fun stories and inspiring anecdotes about some of the items on display, with plenty of opportunity to ask questions and discover more.

These sessions have been designed with accessibility, comfort and conversation in mind, designed to compliment the Mirrorbox installation, which centres the experiences of people living with ME and Long Covid and explores connection, absence and the barriers that can prevent people from accessing places they love.

About Mirrorbox

The Mirrorbox is part of I Would Be Here If I Could – the UK’s largest collaborative social art project, co-created with people living with ME and Long Covid. The Mirrorbox carries messages from people living with one of these conditions to places they love but can no longer physically reach.

At each location, visitors can step inside and listen to a message from the person who has chosen that place, and after listening, they are invited to write a postcard in response. Around 2 million people in the UK live with ME or Long Covid. Both conditions leave many people housebound or bedbound for months, and often years, due to barriers including limited mobility, fluctuating energy, and sensory challenges. This excludes many from public places and spaces. They are just some of the many people who face barriers that limit their ability to take part in cultural, social and public life. These barriers may arise through chronic illness, disability, caring responsibilities, age, geography or other life circumstances.

By bringing together remote and on-site audiences through listening and response, the project makes visible the absence of people from public spaces. It invites reflection on what it means to be connected to a place, and how greater awareness and understanding can help reduce the isolation so many people experience.

The Mirrorbox Journey began last year, visiting message locations across Bristol and the top of Glastonbury Tor. The Royal Opera House is the first stop on the second leg of the Mirrorbox Journey – you can see upcoming locations here. Every message sent for locations across the UK can be seen and heard on the project message map.