Review: labRats by cirqueSaw

Image: cirqueSaw

For immersive fans, one of the few shining lights to emerge during the lockdowns and closures of 2020 was the rise of digital, at-home experiences. In the UK, recognisable names from the world of immersive, including Secret Cinema and Swamp Motel (nowadays they've dropped the 'Motel' and just go by 'SWAMP'), launched Zoom-based experiences that both thrilled and entertained, and for a while, the requirement to live in roughly the same geographical location as creators to experience their work faded away.

In the years since, the quantity of digital-focused interactive experiences on offer has waned, but a select few companies have proudly carried on creating online-only work. cirqueSaw, which is made up of Nathan Leigh and Nicola Orabona, first launched in 2021 and has produced several notable remote theatre productions, including Void Main and POV: You Are An AI Achieving Consciousness.

As part of 2026's From Home Fest, and fresh off the back of winning an IndieCade award, their rat-focused production labRats returns following previous work-in-progress performances across 2024 and 2025. In this browser-based remote performance, audience members take on the role of numbered laboratory rats and complete a series of cognitive tests to both earn treats and avoid 'the zappies'. Following the rats' discovery of a key, participants escape from the confines of their cages and are set loose to explore the wider facility.

Image: cirqueSaw

Throughout labRats, lab technician Mallory (played via audio by Orabona) issues instructions, guidance and warnings to the pack, while Leigh acts as stage manager, overseeing the show's interface. The entirety of labRats runs off a custom-built platform that's used across all of cirqueSaw's shows, and allows the audience to interact with the show's world and communicate with each other via an in-built text channel.

Freshly equipped with neural implants that allow each rat to understand human voices and communicate with each other, the opening 15-minutes of labRats involves each participant responding to simple questions around colours and shapes to calibrate the system. With Mallory's instructions telling them to answer the same as their group (each rat is assigned one of four colours at the beginning of the experience), some hastily put-together plans are made by each group through the in-show text chat in the hope of receiving a treat. While there's an element of competition, with each group pitted against each other in an attempt to earn treats, there's little variety or challenge to these tasks once each group has established their game plan.

Later in the experience, the rats find themselves freed and able to explore the facility, which comes by way of an ASCII-inspired map. There's an impressive number of rooms to inspect, each with wildly different features inside. From 2D arcade-style minigames complete with scoreboards and puzzles, to text-based adventure games and pre-recorded pastiches of silent films, it's clear that every corner of labRat's laboratory has been designed to be as distinct and unique from one another, and that for better or worse, there's far more content than any one audience member can experience in one session.

Image: cirqueSaw

Whether or not the freedom offered to audience members' rats in the show's second half lands for you is going to depend on how comfortable you are with directionless exploration. By design, there are no explicit 'objectives' to complete, nothing directing you towards a set end goal, and very little to reassure you that the path you're on will lead to a proper conclusion. In simple terms, labRats lets you do whatever you want, and doesn't hold your hand as you do it. It's up to you and your fellow rats to create your own experience.

Those happy to explore the facility without a set goal in mind will find that the breadth of things to do can more than occupy their time. During our playthrough, we only scratched the surface of everything on offer, but digging through some cupboards unlocked some traumatic memories that our rat had tried to repress, the tunnels and drains below the facility provided a seemingly endless labyrinth that had us well and truly lost, and we uncovered a sideplot involving Nanbots that would require a whole other playthrough to get to the bottom of.

For many, their go-to plan will be trying to escape the facility. labRats is more than happy to accommodate such desires, but coordination and teamwork between the rats will be required. During our session, roughly 18 other rats were running amok around the facility alongside us, making any progress towards that goal made by any one individual a hard thing to keep track of. At times, the free-roaming portion of labRats felt like unorganised chaos, to the point where several participants commented in the chat that they were unsure what they were supposed to be doing, and any information shared by others was quickly lost in the fast-moving in-world chat.

Image: cirqueSaw

With a surprising amount of narrative depth, endless pathways available for exploration, and the freedom to forge your own story, labRats offers up an experience that's happy to bend around your own will. For many, the amount of freedom on offer may leave them wishing for a tighter, more focused narrative, but that looseness feels like a deliberate choice rather than a shortcoming. It's an experience that's more interested in giving you the tools to create your own story, rather than forcing you down a predetermined path, and responds to your choices, regardless of what they are.

★★★½

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labRats runs until 7th February 2026. Tickets are free of charge, with donations encouraged. To find out more and book tickets, visit cirquesaw.com