The Nightline is an immersive experience that trades primarily on the human voice. Attendees listen, or rather eavesdrop, to anonymous late-night, early-morning messages left by desperate, insomniacal, and shift-working Melburnians.

Created by director Roslyn Oades with sound artist Bob Scott, the show invites intimacy and fosters care for strangers, whose disembodied voices tell stories, secrets, desires and confessions.

Katia Molino in The Nightline. Photo © Simon Fazio

We’re guided by a concierge, Katia Molino, into a darkened space in the Malthouse’s Bagging Room filled with rows of small tables, upon which sit old-fashioned rotary dial phones and lamps.

For about 45 minutes, you sit alone, pick up the handset and fiddle with your personal switchboard to access recordings from the city’s restless and nocturnal. You can tune in and out as you please.

The Nightline has toured elsewhere, including runs at Sydney and Adelaide Festivals, but at each location the organisers have arranged for different volunteer callers, so there is a unique flavour to each city.

The Nightline. Photo © Simon Fazio

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