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The Crash Of The Elysium., a photo by Love Of Carnage! on Flickr.

A return trip to Manchester seemed a long way, especially in the pouring rain. But it was worth it.

The Crash of The Elysium was a spectacular piece, and had my kids enthralled and sometimes genuinely terrified. It’s fitting that part of it was set in a Victorian fair ground, because for all the Dr Who sci-fi trimmings and pounding sound track, this was story telling using magic tricks at their most basic, charming and elegant. And it was fun to be able to observe a group of 6-12 year olds become totally immersed in a drama which they seemingly controlled. Brilliant stuff. Our letter from Dr Who now has pride of place at home. It’s coming to London as part of the cultural events for the Olympics next year.

This was my first Punchdrunk show, having heard about their Duchess of Malfi and then missed their Sleep No More in New York. I hope it won’t be my last.

There’s a review here, and a video report here. Below is the introductory message from the Dr himself.

This year’s Intellect organised Digital Entertainment conference gathered the great, the good and a whole lot of consumer electronics retailers.

I didn’t learn a lot, but it was reassuring to see that powerpoint is gradually changing into real products. The Samsung demo synched up a smart TV, app store, tablet and mobile. And it just worked.  Video played seamlessly and sequentially across all three.

Two things struck me. I’m still unsure how things will play out between content brands, aggregators and hardware. Aggregators are still playing a strong game, but don’t they become like book publishers and movie studios in the long run? A necessary part of the market, but one that consumers are largely indifferent to? And how many CE players can do what Apple have done and create brand loyalty around hardware?

Second, and more interesting, is that the content has yet to shift. Almost all of the talk for converged tv’s  is about how they can be used to distribute existing content (linear channels, video on demand) and perhaps enhance it with social features. But the web teaches us that smart tv content will change and morph based on what the technology can do. It doesn’t strike me that this has happened much yet. I’m wondering how and when programmes become apps rather than slots in a schedule.

I spent yesterday evening playing Papa Sangre on an iPad, with my youngest, in the dark. It’s a game that the 4iP team helped to get going, and was created by Somethin’ Else It’s available via iTunes, as is its successor The NightJar.

It’s billed as the world’s first video game without video. Instead it creates a vivid 360 degree world of sound that you can walk through by tapping on the footprints displayed on the screen. And there be monsters (scary ones). You’ll never forget the first time you’re eaten by a snufflehog.

I listened to Diana’s funeral and to the death of Phil Archer on a car radio, and found them both much more moving than if I’d been watching them on television. Words, feelings and imagination are stronger than images when the context is right. Which is why I’m wondering where Papa Sangre leads. Paul Bennun, one of the creators, has recently described massively multiplayer books. They’ll be here before my kids have kids.

To Norfolk for Dining With Alice. A delightful, bonkers and at times unsettling version of Alice In Wonderland. Another Artichoke hit. More pictures here, and Observer review here.

I’m working at Rightster at the moment, as an adviser. They’re a B2B digital video company that provides tools for making online video simple, and has plans to build a content marketplace for rights owners and publishers.

They streamed the Royal Wedding via Facebook, MSN and a network of international publishers. So while we watched the ceremony on a big screen at home, we had a laptop video Skyping Canadian relatives, and two other computers tracking the feeds and comments round the world. And it worked.

One day soon every school concert, local football match and kids birthday will be streamed like this. It’s no longer a technology problem.

I’m off to San Francisco with the Web Mission companies, and the inimitable Oli Barrett. A week of meetings, networking and the possible with a bunch of the UK’s leading digital entrepreneurs.