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Lady Violet Manners and Viscount William Garnock met on December 30, 2023, at William’s family home of Kirkcaldy in Scotland. Violet didn’t know him, but she did know William’s sister Charlotte and brother-in-law Jamie. The married couple, known as the Duke and Duchess of Noto, extended her an invitation to a New Year’s party at Garnock’s Fife estate. Unbeknownst to Violet, they had a secret agenda: to set her up with William, an eligible yet perennial bachelor. (William, well, was in on it: “I have to admit I knew exactly who she was,” he tells Vogue.)

Their master plan worked. Violet and William sat next to each other at dinner, where they discovered a litany of things in common: they’d both lived in Los Angeles and India, for example, and had founded their own companies. (Violet is the founder of HeritageXplore, an online platform that allows users to book tours of some of Britain’s most historic homes, whereas William founded Feragaia, a non-alcoholic spirits company.) “It did—as cheesy as it sounds—feel like we’d met, spoken, and known each other for a long time. Lots of teasing and jibbing, which I secretly always enjoy. William made me laugh pretty instantly,” Violet says. Throughout the night, she tried to repress the same thought: “I’m going to marry this man.” Little did she know William was having the exact feeling. “I fell in love with her that first night,” he says.

What followed next can only be described as a whirlwind romance. After six months of long distance dating—William, at the time, lived in Texas—he asked Violet’s father for her hand in marriage. “I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would meet the man I was going to marry and be engaged to him within six months. I thought that was just for the movies—and to some degree, I still do. But from the moment I met William, I knew,” Violet says of their fast-moving timeline. He proposed over the July 4 holiday amid the Rockies while the couple was offroading near Jefferson, Colorado.

On June 21, 2025, the couple wed at Violet’s family home of Belvoir Castle in Bottesford, England. Event planner Peter Laird, as well as the staff at Belvoir, orchestrated the grand event.

The immersive theater company Punchdrunk has returned to New York City with “Viola’s Room” — and it couldn’t be more different than their signature international hit, “Sleep No More.”

Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:

Whereas “Sleep No More” — which ran in New York for 14 years and is now playing in Shanghai and soon to open in Seoul — is a large-scale, big-cast, multi-floor epic that plays to audiences of hundreds, “Viola’s Room” is an experience for no more than six people at a time, exploring a smaller-scale but elaborate installation and guided by the recorded voice of Helena Bonham Carter, speaking over headphones.

Throughout the show, barefoot audience members are led through a series of environments that tell the dreamy, occasionally spooky story of a princess’ mysterious connection to the moon. “The show is almost the most distilled form of Punchdrunk, in that it’s got the full DNA of wanting to pull people into our magical world so they forget the land outside,” said Felix Barrett, the artistic director of Punchdrunk, on the latest episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety‘s theater podcast. “But we wanted to try and do something that’s the most intimate show possible, so that it’s got all of the secrets and potency [of ‘Sleep No More’] but compressed to create something that really gets under the skin.”

On “Stagecraft,” Barrett took listeners behind the scenes of a production that has no live actors but is orchestrated by a large team backstage. The production also features as many lighting cues as two or three Broadway shows, and includes bulbs that are so small they’re described as grains of barley.

Barrett also discussed his touring hopes for “Viola’s Room,” his stage adaptation of “Paranormal Activity” (set to play Chicago in October), and what lies ahead for Punchdrunk — including the surprisingly significant role that video games play in the company’s future.

This fall, he’s got an ambitious immersive adaptation of the hit Netflix animated series “Arcane” bowing in Shanghai in November. Surprisingly, it’s a musical. “The idea of staging something which has the poetry of animation with big, chunky, anthemic music, sung live, whilst an audience is promenading, is fraught with many challenges that, if we can put it off — it’s gonna be next level.”

He also said that video games in general are inspiring many of his ideas for other future projects.

“Video games are the most immersive entertainment form because the audience member has so much agency, and has the ability to craft and control and do whatever they want inside these alternate worlds,” he explained. “I’m convinced that the future of immersive theatre is going to be taking more from video games and applying it to live action, because that is really getting lost in something.”

He added, “If you could create something where the audience member has real control of what they do and how they do it, and they have the agency you have in a AAA adventure game — that is probably my big target over the coming years. We are in active work to try and start prototyping that and introduce a new form, which is the real fusion of theater and gaming.”

To hear the entire conversation, listen at the link above or download and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are released every other week.

I connect most with people who share values of acceptance, and I gravitate towards those people, and I probably will blindside people who don’t.

Who is on that blindside list?

I’m gonna win the game. And if your value systems don’t jive with mine, we’re not gonna connect, we’re not gonna bond. I’m not gonna be able to trust you, and so I’m gonna have to blindside you, or get you out somehow, but it’s most likely gonna be a blindside.

Did this come up at all in Australia?

It comes up every single time. Yeah, in every game. This is how I connect with people, it’s through sharing stories. Being curious about other people, asking questions, and then looking for places where the things that we care about connect.

You don’t have to tell me who, but I would be OK if you did—what are some of the most egregious non-connection moments you’ve experienced on the island, political or otherwise?

Well, I don’t know JT’s politics or Rupert [Boneham]’s, or, any of those guys on Heroes vs. Villains for that matter, like Colby [Donaldson], but I don’t think that we share the same politics, and we very clearly did not connect. And you saw how that turned out for those guys. [Laughs.]

OK, the Black Widow is still here. I think she’s in the room with us right now. I’m sorry to say.

I’m telling you, I’m a whole person.

You’re a holistic person.

I know, but inside of a game, it’s a bubble, and inside of that container, who are your people, who’s your tribe, and who’s not? I have a very high tolerance for people and their differences, and I just think do you, as long as you’re not hurting someone else or taking away someone else’s right to be a person. But if you’re going to come after someone’s right to exist as themselves? No, that doesn’t work for me.

When people are on the beach, and they’re at the basest version of themselves, I’ve always wondered what comes out after that.

Yeah. I mean, I think the most divisive for me was the Micronesia finale and the Heroes vs. Villains finale. That’s where you see the politics play out. That’s where the voting happens for the winner. I think you saw where people stood in those moments. And that’s not to say that people can’t change once they get more information, because some of them did apologize afterward. But, you know, some of them didn’t, too.

Survivor is a very political game. I’ve talked with Jon Lovett on his podcast about this too. I think there’s a reason why people who are into politics love Survivor.

My entire life is explained now!

You’re welcome. I validate you.

For my last question, I want to get back to you as this professional reality TV star, content creator, and author. You are continuing and continuing to put yourself out into the world, even though you’ve been burnt by that so many times. Why did you decide that you were going to keep pushing?

I think it’s because I am a Scorpio moon. I don’t know! I just have this deep hunger to feel. And I’m super curious and adventurous. And I really like putting myself into extreme environments where I have very little control, and seeing what happens and how I adapt, and pushing myself to be resilient. And I think that that is what keeps me growing and young. I want to grow, I want to learn, I want to develop. I want to get better and better and enjoy all there is to enjoy. And I even enjoy suffering. And pain is enjoyable to me, alongside joy and ecstasy and all pleasure. All of it is kind of enjoyable.

So like I wrote about in my book, this is my kink, like Survivor reality TV competition shows, putting myself out there, exposing myself in a way that supports people’s development and growth and people’s acceptance of themselves. That’s what my life is about. So I’m gonna keep doing it, even if it seems insane.