Review: The Key of Dreams by Lemon Difficult

This 24-hour-long immersive experience in rural Wales is an intricately crafted, deeply atmospheric weekend of occult mysteries and meaningful immersion.

Photo: Lemon Difficult

A three-hour drive outside of London, deep in the Welsh countryside and down the kind of single-lane road that has you saying, 'There's no way anyone would actually drive down this at 60mph', sits Treowen. Flanked on all sides by grazing sheep, standing alone atop a hill, and surrounded by rolling green fields in every direction, this 17th-century manor house, complete with oak panelling and hidden nooks, is as picturesque a place as you could ever hope to spend a weekend in. It's also home to one of the best immersive experiences we've ever done.

Running from noon to noon with an overnight stay on-site, The Key of Dream combines fine dining, puzzle and escape room elements, improvised interactive performance and branching narratives to create a one-of-a-kind, occult-infused immersive experience that's driven by the audience and their choices. For each show, groups of up to 20 are free to explore nearly every inch of the Jacobean house and its grounds to their heart's content in an attempt to untangle the show's elaborate web of Lovecraftian mysteries and discover the root cause of what's going on at Treowen.

With an exceptionally detailed narrative that rewards exploration and curiosity, the ability for guests to directly shape how the story unfolds, a remarkably committed and talented cast and the luxury of ample time to become absorbed into the world, The Key of Dreams offers those who attend the rare opportunity to completely detach from the outside world, dive headfirst into a fully realised alternative reality and truly lose themselves in the story for a full day.

Photo: Lemon Difficult

Ex-civil servant Wyn Haffenden (Rik Sowden) has been plagued by nightmares since inheriting Treowen. After countless sleepless nights and endless strange dreams, they're at their wits' end and have reached out to dogged Miskatonic University alumnus Randolph Carter (Dan Osbaldeston) for help. Carter, in turn, has extended invitations to both Dee (Emily Carding) - a historiographer with reason to return to Treowen after 20 years - and us, the newly recruited Friends of the Miskatonic University, to try and get to the bottom of these eldritch goings-on.

Alongside these three core characters, guests may also find themselves trading stories with The Collector (Maxine Dubois), unravelling the show's complexities with sharp-tongued lawyer Hope (Leo Doulton), or quietly unearthing long-held secrets with housekeeper Sophie (Monica Salvi), who knows a lot more than they let on.

Upon arriving at Treowen, those who stay on-site are escorted to their rooms to settle in before lunch. Awaiting guests is a copy of The Miskatonic University Field Guide, a red, hardback book that serves as each guest's bible for the experience. With 35-odd pages of printed information and handwritten annotations from Carter, it's heavy reading for those who expected a gentle easing into the show and pretty overwhelming at first glance, but essential to understand both how the show's many mechanics and systems work and how much influence the guests have over the story.

Alongside the Fields Guide sits an invitation to become a badge-holding member of the Friends of Miskatonic University, and for some, a second invite to instead join rival society, PRISMA. While the FMU Field Guide makes clear that collaboration and knowledge sharing between FMU members are essential if the expedition at Treowen is to be a success, it's apparent that some information must be held closer to one's chest, and as time goes on, not all of the guests' goals will be aligned.

Photo: Lemon Difficult

As explained by Carter in the Field Guide, there are multiple paths to uncovering the secrets held within Treowen. While guests can engage with these elements as much or as little as they like and still have a rewarding experience, for many, a good place to start is working through the Cuttings, which are scattered throughout the garden and house. By decoding the inscriptions on each of the 80-odd cuttings, guests will uncover an important, hidden phrase that The Collector has expressed a keen interest in finding out.

Guests looking to dive deeper into the show's rich lore can jump onto any of the five story strains, which have taken influence from the real-life history of Treowen and folklore from the surrounding Monmouthshire area, through numerous diary entries, cryptexes, puzzles, and physical props spread across the venue.

If all of this sounds like a lot to take in, that's because it is. There's a steep learning curve to the opening hours of The Key of Dreams, and the sheer volume of things to look at, take note of, and investigate can be too much for those still grappling with exactly what they should be spending their time focusing on.

The show's cast is on hand to gently nudge guests in the right direction if needed, but The Key of Dreams is first and foremost an audience-driven experience, with very little explicitly spelt out. Among our group of 20 guests, many seemed to take to the complex puzzle-solving elements with ease, while others opted for a slower approach, instead retreating to the Snug with a hot drink to while away the hours doing more traditional jigsaw puzzles, which also tie into the show's broader narrative.

Photo: Lemon Difficult

Underpinning the puzzle-focused elements of The Key of Dreams, there's a huge focus on immersive interactions between guests and the 6-strong cast, which manifests itself in a number of ways. With one actor to every three guests, there's an unbelievable amount of face time offered to those able to pull themselves away from the puzzles. One-on-one, improvised interactions with the cast are commonplace and can occur at basically any moment, whether it's passing a character going up the manor house's grand staircase, catching them as they prepare tea or coffee or, in the case of Carter, when they're stood out front of the building having a cigarette.

For those who choose to align themselves with a particular character or society, there's a series of scheduled meetings for either FMU or PRISMA members in pre-arranged locations around the house, where guests meet to debate and discuss their next collective steps. For the wider group of 20, the numerous meals (lunch, supper, dinner and breakfast) that occur throughout the 24-hour stay, in which Dee and Carter eat alongside guests, give ample opportunity to see the interpersonal relationships between characters become more and more strained as the intensity of the experience begins to ramp up.

Photo: Lemon Difficult

One of The Key of Dreams’ greatest strengths is in how much time it gives you to exist inside its world. With a full 12 hours of narrative breathing room on the first day and an additional handful of hours the following day, there’s space for something beautiful to occur: an emotional connection with characters that builds slowly and quietly, then hits you all at once. Characters' true intentions simmer beneath the surface of every interaction, their motivations remain murky for most of the day, and you might spend hours in the world before their masks begin to slip. 

In lieu of a pre-written script, the show's cast have instead studied a 40-page-long document and spreadsheet, which has character archetypes, motivations and potential outcomes for shows clearly outlined. This loose structure allows the audience's decisions, whatever they may be, to steer the story in whichever way they decide and allows the cast to respond to those choices on the fly with improvised dialogue and scenes.

One such improvised scene that’s stuck with us came over dinner, in a moment between Dee and a fellow guest. Earlier in the day, those aligned with PRISMA had been asked to uncover the precise question Dee needed to ask as part of a ritual scheduled for a few hours’ time. In between courses, a theory to that question was posed, loaded with meaning and painfully direct. It tied directly into Dee's past and cut to the core of their character's motivations for returning to Treowen. Without a moment to think, Carding delivered a response so unfiltered and heartfelt, it felt like a dagger to the heart. The mask had slipped; we understood their pain, and every prior interaction we'd had with Dee was reframed in an instant.

Photo: Lemon Difficult

The show's durational nature also allows ample time for the relationships between fellow guests to mature. Helped in large part by the communal meals and common goal of trying to get to the bottom of exactly what's going on within the house, everyone is more than willing to work together, share information and fill each other in on the backstory they've missed out on while investigating elsewhere. As multiple story strains started coming to a head, guests ran around the house trying to find one another to make sure no one missed out on the big revelations, and by the evening, nearly everyone was on a familiar, first-name basis with the rest of the expedition crew.

Once night falls upon Treowen, things take a darker turn. Down by the pond, something macabre has been recovered from the water. On the top floor of the house, there has been a revelation involving a music box, and someone is chanting in tongues. In the cellar of the building, hooded figures stand in a circle, preparing to take part in a cult ritual, and hushed whispers are coming from behind a trapdoor on the first-floor landing.

Photo: Lemon Difficult

As tension continues to build with every passing hour, guests find themselves scattered throughout the house for late-night meetings. As the clock approaches 11pm, things reach their climax. An improvised confrontation between Carter and Dee (whose body has now been taken over by an otherworldly being) does little to release the tension in the air but offers an ending point for the day's experience, some 11 hours after guests first walked through the doors of Treowen.

With a new day comes the final hours of The Key of Dreams. As everyone tucks into breakfast in the Banquet Hall, word reaches the expedition party that the house has once again changed with new sets of puzzles and cryptexes. There's a final opportunity to mop up any leftover story strains, and more importantly, a collective decision must be made that will impact either Carter or Dee in a major way.

Given that The Key of Dreams lasts 24 hours, the price of attending is admittedly a lot higher than what you'd typically pay for any other immersive experience. Starting at £450 per person without accommodation (which ranges from £350 to £700 per room), a visit for two people will easily cost you over £1000. While that's a considerable amount of money to spend on anything other than a mortgage payment, it's absolutely worth it.

With 15+ hours of narrative to throw yourself into, outstanding performances from the cast, all meals included, and the chance to spend the night in such a beautiful setting, it's arguably remarkable value for money, especially when compared to shows like The Burnt City, which would be upwards of £100+ for VIP tickets and ran for a (in this context..) measly three hours.

While in real life, no supernatural creatures or otherworldly beings are actually exerting their influence over those at Treowen for the 24 hours in which The Key of Dreams exists there, there’s certainly magic at play. It's one of the best immersive experiences on offer anywhere in the world today, and those who attend can’t help but fall under its spell.

★★★★★

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The Key of Dreams runs at Treowen, just outside of Monmouth, Wales, on selected dates across 2025. Tickets are priced from £450.00 per person, excluding accommodation. For more info and to book tickets, visit thekeyofdreams.co.uk

For more reviews of immersive experiences like The Key of Dreams, check out our recent Reviews.