The Ted Bundy Project by Greg Wohead

In November 2012, Greg Wohead stumbled across Ted Bundy’s confession tapes online. He couldn’t stop listening and so began a fascinating investigation of morbid curiosity. Why are we drawn to look twice at gory images? Why do we rubberneck at car accidents? And what is so compelling about serial killers?

The Ted Bundy Project is a solo performance about Wohead’s relationship to Ted Bundy, one of the world’s most notorious serial killers. Bundy confessed to having murdered at least 30 young women between 1974 and 1978. He was known for being handsome, gentle and charming, which is usually how he was able to earn the trust of his victims. There are many utterly compelling twists and turns in his case.

Wohead makes use of Bundy’s confession tapes in unexpected ways to bring a potency and presence into the room. Using some of the items found in Bundy’s car when he was arrested (including a pair of handcuffs, a rope and a panty hose mask), he asks what we are capable of imagining and doing and whether we are who we say we are.

This difficult, slippery show makes us face up to our morbid fascination, a fascination that we share with Bundy himself (the Guardian).

This is an exploration born of a curiosity about the nature of charm, the label of ‘monster’ and the tension between attraction and repulsion. The show itself is part confession (both Wohead’s and Bundy’s), part reconstruction and part exploration of the power of suggestion. Wohead

interweaves his own personal account of discovering Bundy’s confession tapes (which led him down a rabbit hole to the darker side of the internet) with the vocal mimicking of the tapes themselves and a reconstruction of one of Bundy’s murders.

Greg Wohead says, I keep coming back to the night in November 2012 when I first heard the confession tapes. I found the experience extremely unsettling yet totally compelling. The inspiration for the show was the feeling I experienced; being disgusted and horrified by the things Bundy was saying, but also being intrigued and wanting to know more. It’s a feeling to which I think we can all relate.

Wohead made The Ted Bundy Project as part of the Flying Solo International Commission – a commission by Contact, MC Amsterdam, Fuel and The Albany to develop a new solo show. He is also currently developing Comeback Special, a reenactment of Elvis Presley’s 1968 Comeback TV Special with Shoreditch Town Hall, Bristol Old Vic Ferment and Chisenhale Dance Space and touring a performance called Hurtling, which takes place on a rooftop.