Royal Shakespeare Company plans hi-tech staging of The Tempest

RSC combines with Intel and Imaginarium Studios to bring performance-capture technology to live theatre

The head of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) may be more versed in the language of the Bard than computer chips, but a corporate technology video inspired him to see the potential of digital science, fibre optics and sensors for live theatre.

Gregory Doran, the RSC's artistic director, was overwhelmed by an extraordinary flying whale in a three-minute corporate video by Intel Corporation. The footage is spectacular. The whale swims across three juxtaposed cinema screens before emerging through one of them and swimming over hundreds of people in an auditorium.