The peep show - Ian Smith interview

Ian Smith is enjoying the earthly delights of Hieronymus Bosch, writes Mark Fisher

IAN Smith is sitting among his collaborators in Glasgow's Tramway, pondering the big concepts behind his new show, Peeping At Bosch. They're all deep in thought when the director has a moment of panic. Will the audiences who know him as the driving force behind Mischief La-Bas, the company responsible for such daft enterprises as the Elvis Cleaning Company and the Tom Jones Fanclub, think this latest piece is just a bit too arty?

It's then that he notices his trusty bag lying on the floor, stuffed with items from Tam Shepherd's Trick Shop. "It's full of plastic ears and nail-through-the-finger gags," he says. "Tam Shepherd's still in there. They'll recognise Mischief."

Any show that requires the audience to wear silver funnels on their heads ("a heath and safety measure against being over-exposed to medieval sensibilities") and offers the opportunity to increase the discomfort of the suffering performers ("one of the rare occasions where the audience can torment the performers rather than the other way around") is hardly in danger of taking itself too seriously. All the same, on a spectrum that ranges from the Mischief La-Bas show The Wedding Party – in which a jilted bride scours the streets for a replacement husband – to Smith's intelligent lectures at the National Review of Live Art, Peeping At Bosch is an example of the director at his more esoteric.

"I'm drawing on the area of live art and installation as much as theatre," says the man with the best sideburns in showbiz. "It's almost like a living exhibition and it's definitely not a narrative show. I want to expand people's ideas of what a show can be."

His starting point is The Garden Of Earthly Delights, the 15th-century painting by Hieronymus Bosch. More than just a vision of heaven and hell, it is a beguiling illustration of all manner of human activity, not all of it suitable for description in a newspaper.

"Although everybody thinks they know the painting, no one looks at it," says Smith. "People tend to think of the hellish creatures, demons and torture instruments, but that's only a quarter of the painting. What I want to concentrate on is, for example, the central panel, which is like Glastonbury. Nobody knows what's going on in there – it's basically a big love-in with lots of animals and fruit and people having fun. Nobody knows whether Bosch was saying that if you behave like this you go to the next panel, which is hell, or that if you didn't fall from grace in Eden, the preceding panel, maybe the world could be like this. Nobody knows whether he was for or against this amoral sexual freedom."

If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, then making theatre about painting must be similarly foolhardy. But despite being a collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland, Peeping At Bosch is more installation than conventional theatre, leaving it entirely down to the audience how long they stay and how much they interact. "A key part of Mischief La-Bas work is the one-to-one experience," says Smith. "The audience are participants, not spectators. You, as a punter, join us in creating the work."

Working to Smith's masterplan, there are a number of contributing artists. Choreographer Lindsay John will bring his knowledge of Japanese butoh; Ian Kettles will introduce inflatable sculpture; and Ronnie Heeps is creating a video animation in which he depopulates The Garden Of Earthly Delights. There will be carvings from Sri Lanka, soundscape from La Chunky, machines by Alex Rigg and a miniature carousel on which the audience can ride.

Smith's long-term vision is for a large-scale production, Bisch Basch Bosch, that would play in the great European capitals in the run-up to the 500th anniversary of Bosch's death in 2016. "I have a larger ambition to recreate the universe of Bosch as a kind of perverted theme park; an outdoor, walk-through experience," he says. "If it goes further, we will talk to choirs and ballet companies; we would build one-on-one experiences and fairground rides."

In the meantime, Peeping At Bosch will explore similar themes in a more manageable way, asking audiences to cast fresh eyes on an iconic painting. "Peeping At Bosch is a gentle taster that reclaims the idea that Bosch was more about free love, gentility and harmony than he was about torture," he says. "If people are shocked, it'll be at how calm and beautiful it is."

• Peeping At Bosch, Tramway, Glasgow (0845 330 3501), Thursday to July 13