Review: The End by COLAB Theatre

Part escape room, part immersive theatre, COLAB Theatre's The End sees them venture into new territory as teams work to save the world from destruction in just 60 minutes.

Photo: COLAB Theatre

Following an early version of the show previewing at the COLAB Invitational Theatre Festival last September, COLAB Theatre's post-apocalyptic theatrical escape room experience, The End, has now launched at the company's London Bridge home, currently set to run until 1st August 2026.

Located within one of COLAB Tower's three tunnel spaces, the hour-long experience sees groups of up to six people race against the clock to navigate through multiple layers of security inside a military bunker and attempt to save the world from 'The Darkness', a mysterious and deadly entity responsible for wiping out a huge portion of the world's population.

While The End features escape room staples like keypads and locks, it distinguishes itself from many other escape experiences by incorporating a significant amount of interaction with a solo performer and a complex story that unfolds as players progress through each of the experience's three main rooms.



Before entering the tunnel itself, guests are handed headphones and an audio player, which lays the groundwork for the show's story and sets the (admittedly pretty high) stakes. After being blindfolded and guided into the tunnels by Sergeant Major Problem - the first of several roles played by Lawrence Howard during our visit - the experience wastes no time throwing teams straight into the deep end, initially tasking them with finding a way inside the bunker in near darkness.

Photo: COLAB Theatre

Once groups make it into the Decontamination Room, which players enter after unlocking the bunker doors, loud noises rattle the walls of the space at regular intervals. It proves to be an effective distraction from the space's main puzzle, which places a heavy emphasis on clear communication and teamwork. Alongside the numerous padlocked switches that first need to be unlocked and activated in order to restore power to the room, there’s a frantic Among Us-style challenge spread across three touchscreen terminals, which forces players to quickly delegate tasks to each other against the clock.

As casual escape room players, we found The End's puzzles to be pretty well-balanced, providing just enough of a challenge to be rewarding when solved but never so obvious that we flew through any of the experience's three main spaces. Given the variety of different challenges packed into the experience, there's likely to be at least one puzzle that plays to everyone's individual strengths, even if it's just being able to work well under pressure or keep your cool when the scares ramp up.

Photo: COLAB Theatre

The Science Lab, which sits at the far end of the tunnel, introduces additional puzzles while placing a much stronger focus on concluding the show's narrative. Several exposition-heavy scenes see Howard's scientist character, Elias, hurriedly scribbling down names, connections, and a timeline onto a whiteboard in an attempt to make sense of what caused the outside world to collapse, leading into a pyrotechnic-heavy finale that requires groups to put on protective gear.

While it’s clear that COLAB has committed to creating a fully fleshed-out story that ties all of the show's characters together and explains how 'The Darkness' came to be, it's quite a lot for teams to keep up with, and at times, the storyline becomes overly complex for a format where audiences are concentrating on puzzles, keys, and codes.

Despite that, Lawrence Howard’s performance helps maintain the momentum during The End's later rooms and allows for some genuinely exciting interactions midway through, which feel ripped straight out of a sci-fi film and also introduce some intriguing mechanics for interacting with their character. With group sizes capped to six people, the experience benefits from having a great actor-to-guest ratio that affords everyone the opportunity to participate during interactions and spend a meaningful amount of time with Howard's various characters.

While the storytelling occasionally struggles beneath the weight of its own mythology, The End still succeeds in creating a cohesive world where the puzzles, performances and setting feel connected and grounded. The result is an effective hybrid of immersive theatre and escape room design which stands apart from many of London’s more straightforward puzzle-led experiences and serves as another worthy addition to COLAB Theatre's already impressive body of work.

★★★½

[Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review]

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COLAB Theatre's The End runs at COLAB Tower near London Bridge until 1st August 2026. Tickets are priced from £27.50 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit theendishere.co.uk

For more reviews of immersive and interactive work, check out our recent Reviews.