The Annwn Prize – the first global award that celebrates excellence in immersive storytelling – has announced the four works shortlisted for its inaugural edition: Colored / Noire (Novaya), Consensus Gentium (Karen Palmer), Constantinopoliad (Sister Sylvester) and NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars) (Andrew Schneider). An exhibition of the shortlisted works will open at Wales Millennium Centre in May 2026, giving audiences the opportunity to experience the very best work from across the world in the UK. The winner will be announced on Sunday, 14th June 2026, at an awards ceremony in Cardiff. The four shortlisted works, arranged alphabetically by title, are: Colored / Noire – France, Novaya Visitors equipped with augmented reality headsets and bone-conduction audio systems are transported to 1950s Alabama, at the heart of the civil rights struggle. The experience allows participants to relive, as if they were there, the courageous act of Claudette Colvin - a 15-year-old girl who, nine months before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat on a bus. The selection committee commended its exceptional theatrical quality, essential and skilful writing and directing, as well as its groundbreaking use of Extended Reality (XR) to evoke deep emotional connection. Consensus Gentium – UK, Karen Palmer An innovative app immerses audiences in a near-future society where freedoms erode under biased AI and surveillance. As the protagonist, you navigate a government Global Citizen App to visit your sick Nana - subjected to tests that measure your compliance or dissent. Using facial detection and AI, the film reads your expressions and decisions in real time, creating a unique, personalised journey. The selection committee praised its emotionally charged, participant-driven narrative that powerfully explores digital citizenship, agency and surveillance - where the participants every choice reflects urgent questions of our connected future. Constantinopoliad – UK/Greece, Sister Sylvester An expanded cinema work that gathers its audience for an act of collective reading. A response to the archive of the poet Constantine Cavafy, the work is inspired by the blank and torn-out pages in “Constantinopoliad, an epic”, the journal the teenage Cavafy began when he and his family fled Alexandria. By Lost and missing archives through time, and by the ghosts, both erotic and historical, that visit the older Cavafy in his poems. The selection committee commended its use of touch, imagery, sound, and words to create a vivid experience for audiences - inviting you to embark on a journey into the imagination of a young Cavafy as he explores his creative potential and sexuality. NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars) – USA, Andrew Schneider An interactive theatrical installation where the audience steps into total darkness and becomes the centre of a shifting constellation. Guided by an unseen narrator, participants journey from complete sensory deprivation into a precisely programmed matrix of nearly 4,000 reactive LED lights and a 496-channel soundscape. Part meditation, part exploration, the work draws visitors into a hyper-focus of the present, tracing every decision they have made leading to that precise moment. The selection committee praised its highly original approach to spatial storytelling, precise technical virtuosity and masterful pacing that invites audiences to reflect on how we spend our time and the meaning we discover in everyday acts. The shortlist spans geographical representation and medium, with artists from four different countries exploring the possibilities of augmented reality, branching film, expanded cinema and interactive theatrical installation. The shortlisted works demonstrate excellence in compelling storytelling; make audiences an active and integral part of the piece; and utilise technologies to enhance, augment or impact our sense of reality. They must have been exhibited in a festival, tour or venue programme between January 2024 – July 2025 to be eligible. The Annwn Prize’s inaugural shortlist has been chosen by a selection committee, comprising six of a wider nominating panel of international curators and commentators: Mark Atkin, director, Crossover Labs; Ana Brzezinska, immersive curator, Barbican/Moment Factory; Samantha King, head of programme, VIVE Arts; Ellen Kuo, head of XR market, Newimages Festival; David Massey, senior producer for creative technology and storytelling, Wales Millennium Centre; Tom Millen, director, Crossover Labs. The Prize, launched in 2025 by Wales Millennium Centre and produced with Crossover Labs, marks a major new moment in the global arts calendar. Supported by Peter and Janet Swinburn, the winning artist or studio will be awarded £20,000 along with a bespoke residency to support the development of new work. Graeme Farrow, chief creative and content officer at Wales Millennium Centre, said: Our inaugural shortlist represents exactly what the Annwn Prize was established to celebrate: the pioneering nature of immersive storytelling to resonate with us in new and unique ways. The four shortlisted works are at the forefront of this rapidly evolving art form, the possibilities of which are matched only by the boundless creativity of the artists working within it. Huge congratulations to the shortlisted artists, and we look forward to bringing their extraordinary works to audiences at the Wales Millennium Centre next Spring. The shortlist selection committee, said: The Annwn Prize selection committee is excited to announce four works, celebrating excellence, storytelling and artistry. Together, we have compiled a selection that pushes the boundaries of storytelling and entertainment whilst maintaining high standards of technical proficiency and staging. The shortlist examines poignant and urgent themes such as social injustice, truth, love, and the very nature of existence. As a committee, we have enjoyed the opportunity to come together to hold honest and critical conversations about the extraordinary immersive work being created by artists around the world. The collection of finalists embodies what the Annwn Prize sets out to celebrate and demonstrates the vast possibilities of the art form itself. The Annwn Prize’s mission is to provide a global platform to elevate immersive storytelling as a vital pillar of cultural expression, celebrate pioneering artists and drive critical discussion of this art form, bringing exceptional and compelling work to UK audiences. Wales Millennium Centre is dedicated to exploring new ways of telling stories using immersive technology and celebrates creators working at the intersection of art and technology. In 2022, the centre launched Bocs, a dedicated space for immersive experiences and extended reality (XR), and in 2024, unveiled plans for a forthcoming, cutting-edge and digital-first performance creativity in Wales. To find out more about The Annwn Prize and the shortlist, visit annwnprize.com

From family-friendly frights and immersive walking tours to intense experiences that promise big scares, here are our recommendations for London's best immersive experiences this Halloween... Photos/Images: Ghost Newington/Alistair Veryard/ScreamWorks/Beavertown Brewery/Peter Broughton As always, London is looking to play host to a number of spooky immersive experiences this October. To help you make the most of the spooky season, we've gathered together all the information you need to make your next night out a great one. Below is our pick of the best experiences on offer across the month for those looking for various levels of frights. From family-friend spooks to intense experiences, there's something on offer for everyone's taste this Halloween, if you're brave enough... This guide will be updated as more experiences are announced. Check back later in the month for more recommendations. Phantom Peak - Hallowed Peak: THe Lunar Festival Video: Phantom Peak We've spoken at length previously about how good Phantom Peak is. In our opinion, this platypus-loving mining town is the most enjoyable immersive experience currently on offer in London. While it's open nearly year-round with regular updates and re-themes, Halloween is when the place comes into its own. For 2025, their Lunar Festival is back for a fourth year, with all three previous Hallowed Peak seasons having enjoyed multiple sold-out dates. For this year's edition of Hallowed Peak, there are 11 brand-new story trails available for guests to experience, which feature everything from hell-bent TV hosts and missing mummies to monster stag-dos. Phantom Peak is a family-friendly experience, and the free-roaming, experience-at-your-own-pace design of the show means you can take a break from the storylines at any time and pick them back up without missing anything. There's a string of other activities on offer, including carnival games, costume competitions and multiple Hallowed Peak-themed food and drink options. The show's creators describe Hallowed Peak as 'more spooky than scary', so it's an ideal experience for those seeking a Halloween experience that's not intense. Photos: Alistair Veryard Following last year’s sold-out success, Hallowed Peak returns with a brand new chapter in the award-winning immersive open-world experience. This time, the town of Phantom Peak faces its strangest mystery yet: the old Mayor Furbish, long presumed dead, has resurfaced. But is he really back... or is something more sinister at work? Prepare to explore the sprawling, open-world immersive adventure set in a richly detailed steampunk-inspired town, enjoy a drink by the waterfall, and uncover exciting new storylines woven throughout with elements of escape rooms, interactive theatre, and free-roam exploration. 📍 Canada Water 💰 From £35.00 👻 Scare Level: 1/5 🕒 19th September - 9th November 2025 🎟️ Book via phantompeak.com Creature by Peter Broughton Image: Peter Broughton Fresh off a sold-out debut run at COLAB Invitational Theatre Festival, Peter Broughton’s Creature is one of the year’s most exciting immersive productions. With each performance for one audience member, it’s also one of the most exclusive. For Halloween weekend, the 20-minute-long show returns to COLAB Tower for a 3-day run, which we expect will sell out almost immediately. Fusing immersive theatre with puppetry and binaural audio, Creature explores themes of rejection and abandonment. Each performance’s single audience member takes their place in a wheelchair for the duration and assumes the role of a captive Victor Frankenstein as they come face-to-face with a life-sized puppet of their own creation. As one of the lucky few who’ve been able to experience it already, we can confirm that it’s an intense and overwhelming thrill ride that’s unlike any other immersive show out there. From Peter Broughton (Co-Creator and Associate Director of Bacchanalia) comes a fusion of puppetry and immersive theatre, inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Take a seat in a wheelchair, guided into darkness by a gas-masked figure, and don headphones that plunge you into a world of shadows, sound, and tension. Confront the phenomenal, towering puppet in an intimate, one-on-one encounter with the unknown. 📍 London Bridge 💰 From £98.00 👻 Scare Level: 3/5 🕒 30th October - 1st November 2025 🎟️ Book via eventbrite.co.uk Granny: The Horror Escape Game - Screamworks Image: ScreamWorks In recent years, ScreamWorks has earned a reputation for creating some of London's best immersive horror experiences. Their debut show, Bloodbath, launched in late 2022 and was unlike anything else on offer in the capital at the time. It pushed the boundaries and conventions of immersive theatre to an extreme and saw visitors being force-fed, tied up, undressed, and chased through an air vent on their hands and knees. 2023 saw them debut The Ghost Hunt - another exceptionally scary immersive horror experience that had guests make their way through a Victorian house illuminated only by torchlight, and 2024 saw the launch of Open House: The Escape Room, which combined horror and escape room elements and unlike traditional escape rooms, offered a huge amount of freedom, and very little in the way of help. For 2025, they return with a new experience - Granny. Billed as an open-world horror experience, Granny has been designed to 'create fear, paranoia and anxiety in its participants'. While for most companies, that could be taken as an empty threat used for marketing, ScreamWorks have a track record of upping the terror with each new show. You can expect Granny to be an intense experience that's not for the faint of heart. You have been warned. It starts as a Halloween dare: Break into the old lady’s house behind the abandoned bookshop. Everyone’s heard the rumours… She murdered her whole family and hid their bodies under the floorboards. She never leaves the house — and eats spiders and worms. Some say she’s over a hundred years old. Others say she’s immortal — and knows everything. Just stories… right? You keep telling yourself that —until the door slams shut behind you, and you realise you’re inside an elaborate trap. What started as a thrill becomes a game of survival. And while Granny may not see well, she hears everything —and moves like lightning. Run. Hide. Plot your escape. Just don’t let her catch you. Because once Granny’s got you in her arms…she’ll never let you go. Photos of previous ScreamWorks shows. 📍 Bethnal Green 💰 From £34.00 👻 Scare Level: 4/5 🕒 3rd October - 31st December 2025 🎟️ Book via screamworks.london Bridge Command - Halloween Missions Images: Bridge Command Across 28th October to 2nd November, Bridge Command - one of London's best immersive experiences - is suspending their usual rotation of intergalactic missions to provide two exclusive Halloween-themed experiences aboard the UCS Takanami and UCS Havock. Running for a limited time, these missions allow the usual group sizes (up to a crew of 14 on UCS Havock and 10 on UCS Takanami) to experience these brand new storylines with a spooky twist. While details of their contents remain under wraps for now, the below descriptions offer a teaser of what to expect. In addition, access to The Mess - Bridge Command's highly themed bar aboard the USC Warspite - remain available for just £10 per ticket, and include a free cocktail. Silo A UCN destroyer class ship has gone silent carrying confidential cargo. Dark corridors, empty bunks, no crew. But something else lingers aboard. Ghost In The Machine A Terra Novan spiritual leader and the UCN High Command demand the crew’s support to cleanse a forsaken Exodus battleground. But does the past want to stay buried? Photo: Alex Brenner 📍 Vauxhall 💰 From £45.00 👻 Scare Level: ?/5 🕒 28th October - 2nd November 2025 🎟️ Book via bridgecommand.space Alibi: Dead Air by Tom Black and Dean Rogers Image: Tom Black/Dean Rogers While they've gained huge popularity in China since first appearing in the late 2010's, with over 10,000 physical locations and millions of regular players, Jubensha games have (until recently) largely passed English-speaking audienes by. A 2024 video from People Makes Game diving into Jubensha introduced many to the genre for the first time, but it's only in the last six months that London audiences have had the chance to try them out for themselves, with several Jubensha-inspired experiences having debuted at Voidspace Live earlier this year. Debuting this Halloweek weekend, Alibi: Dead Air - created by Tom Black (Bridge Command, Crisis? What Crisis?, Jury Games) and Dean Rodgers (The Crystal Maze Live Experience, Secret Cinema) - provides another opportunity to try out this new kind of social deducation game, and find out why the genre's gained such a following overseas. Twelve suspects. One killer. And that killer could be YOU. A true crime podcast, with a murdered host. A serial killer on the loose. Alibi is an immersive murder mystery game where you play both suspect and detective. A game of social deduction, where you must solve the clues to uncover which one of your fellow players is the killer. In our first case: Dead Air, a true crime podcast host dies in a recording booth while hunting a serial killer. 📍 Liverpool Street/Aldgate 💰 From £25.00 👻 Scare Level: ?/5 🕒 29th October - 2nd November 2025 🎟️ Book via eventbrite.co.uk Ghost Newington - Halloween Walking Tour Photo: Ghost Newington Back after several years away, Ghost Newington - the much-loved immersive Halloween walking tour - makes its grand return to the streets of Stoke Newington for 2025. For the uninitiated, Ghost Newington has guests exploring the areas' winding backstreets and cobbled yards under nightfall alongside The Ghost Master (Paul Critoph) over two and a half hours. You can expect jump scares, unexpected encounters, macabre tales of local legend, and, of course, several stop-offs in local public houses. Previously, the team behind Ghost Newington have staged The House of Dust in Haggerston, which invited visitors to enjoy three supernatural cocktails as The Ghost Master took them on a twisted journey through the annals of time to a world where ghosts, murderers and ghouls were brought to life, and last year they moved south of the river to Brixton for Tales Of The Strange, a spooky soirée hosted by fictional horror writer, Jeffrey Thrillerman. As dusk falls, muster your courage at The Axe Pub, where the Mysterious Ghost Master and his Minions will meet you and take you on a journey to uncover the dark, the unusual, and the downright macabre stories of this strange little corner of London. Guard yourself against Bonkers Balloonists, walk the treacherous path of Edgar Allen Poe, discover the mystery behind Dusty Sally, and raise a toast to the Morbid Entity that lies deep beneath a car park. This isn't just any old run-of-the-mill Ghost tour. No Ma'am! This is GHOST NEWINGTON. One of Stoke Newington's top two ghost walks! (We can call it that because, to our knowledge, there’s only one other). 📍 Stoke Newington 💰 From £25.00 👻 Scare Level: 2/5 🕒 23rd October - 1st November 2025 🎟️ Book via designmynight.com Beavertown Presents... The Lost Dimensions Image: Beavertown Brewery No strangers to a Halloween pop-up - having previously taken over The Prince Charles Cinema and Flat Iron Square for spook-filled events in years past - Beavertown Brewery are hosting an immersive experience at Kachette between Old Street and Shoreditch High Street across Halloween weekend for 2025. Titled 'The Lost Dimensions', the 90-minute-long experience will have guests travel through five distinct zones and push people out of their comfort zones in an effort to reward those who 'say yes to the strange, the bold, and the bizarre'. As you'd expect, there's also some free drinks thrown in for those who attend, which is something we'll always say 'Yes' to. The experience invites you to leave normality behind and enter the wonderfully weird, surreal journey where you ditch the fear of judgment and embrace the unexpected. Across five distinct worlds, you’ll be tempted, teased, and tipped out of your comfort zone through curious prompts, unexpected encounters and side quests that urge you to say yes to the strange, the bold, and the bizarre. Each space offers a fresh take on what it means to be Never Normal. Everything culminates in the Beavertown bar, the ultimate spot to swap stories, crack open cans and celebrate your truest, weirdest self. Within the bar, the clothing pop-up returns with the brand-new range, and to top it off, the space will come alive each day with sets from some of London’s most exciting DJs, including two secret headline performances. This isn’t a fright fest. It’s storytelling with a deliciously twisted edge. So, loosen your grip on reality, steel your nerves, and prepare for spine-tingles of the finest variety. Because life’s more fun when you stick your neck out. 📍 Old Street 💰 From £20.00 👻 Scare Level: ?/5 🕒 31st October - 2nd November 2025 🎟️ Book via beavertownbrewery.co.uk For the latest news and updates on all the best immersive Halloween experiences in London this October, follow us on Instagram 🎃

Photo: The Last Days of Pompeii In 79 AD, the city of Pompeii was destroyed following the eruption of the nearby Mount Vesuvius. A cloud of ash and toxic gases engulfed the city, killing nearly all of its 10,000+ inhabitants, and the volcanic debris that followed entombed their remains, preserving their final moments in a hardened cast of calcified ash. It's one of history's best-known disasters, and is now the focus of The Last Days of Pompeii, a new immersive exhibition, which has just begun a 16-week run at Immerse LDN in East London. The show's producers, Madrid Artes Digitales, have had a near-constant presence in London over the past year, having previously launched Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition at Immerse LDN and The Legend of the Titanic: The Ultimate Titanic Exhibition in Canada Water. This latest exhibition, which runs until 15th March 2026, sees them return to the same cavernous space in Immerse LDN that they took over for Tutankhamun and brings with it additional interactive elements not seen in other cities across Europe. Using a mix of 360-degree immersive projections, virtual reality, and interactive screens alongside traditional, museum-like displays, The Last Days of Pompeii: The Immersive Exhibition aims to transport visitors back nearly 2000 years to not only witness the destruction of the famed city but also learn more about the everyday lives of its inhabitants. Photo: The Last Days of Pompeii The opening rooms of The Last Days of Pompeii look a lot like any other museum exhibition. Large wall-mounted panels provide information and context about the day-to-day lives of those within Pompeii, detailing their morning routines, social activities and cultural offerings. Several display cases house fragments of marble sculptures, terracotta pots, swords and mural paintings alongside museum labels. While MAD's Tutankhamun exhibition was made up almost entirely of recreations, the items on display in The Last Days of Pompeii are genuine artefacts from the time, on loan from Barcelona's Galeria F. Cervera. Further into the exhibition, the focus shifts to archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli, who in 1863 pioneered the technique of making plaster casts from the hollow space left in the hardened ash casings of the city's entombed residents. There are recreations of several plaster casts throughout the space, all frozen in time, and seeing them is a pretty moving experience, with their poses conveying the fear and terror of their final moments, despite not having any identifiable features. In the next room is the first of two virtual reality scenes. With visitors wearing headsets while seated on swivel chairs, they're free to look around as they follow an unnamed gladiator into battle at Pompeii's amphitheatre. There's certainly some artistic licence on display during this 7-minute-long sequence, with a fight taking place in the centre of a full-blown, Rome-like colosseum, complete with retractable platforms that spit fire, animals appearing out of trap doors and a two-ship naval battle. It's all engaging and visually impressive, but it seems to be pretty far from the reality of what Pompeii's gladiator fighting was like, and it plays fast and loose with facts. Photo: The Last Days of Pompeii/Set Vexy The exhibition's main space, which offers 360-degree projections, lies behind a curtain following the VR section. In stark contrast to some of the small personal items on display in the exhibitions' earlier rooms, everything in this space is writ large. Standing 8 metres tall, the four walls and floor of the space display an ever-changing series of Instagram-worthy animations on a 26-minute loop. Much like in MAD's Tutankhamun exhibition, the projection room is by far the most impressive part of The Last Days of Pompeii and is the space visitors will likely spend most of their visit in. Broken up into eight chapters, the projections shift from showing the day-to-day life of Pompeii's residents, relaxing in their villas and shopping in the market, to the first-hand testimony of the catastrophe by lawyer-cum-author Pliny the Younger. Other scenes show abstract premonitions of the impending disaster by a Wizard of Oz-like bronze faun statue and the eventual discovery of the city by Spanish explorer Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre. While the highlight of this room are the two scenes depicting Vesuvius' eruption and the destruction of the city below, complete with a whirlwind of embers, ash, and lightning, along with chariot-sized chunks of molten lava smashing through buildings, we'd recommend staying in the space for a complete loop to get the full experience, as there are also moments that offer up quiet reflection. Regardless of the content, the scale of the room is pretty stunning and truly engulfs your vision, pulling you into the experience. Photo: The Last Days of Pompeii The exhibition's second VR experience sees visitors step into the metaverse as they explore several digital recreations of the Villa of the Mysteries, which owes its name to a series of frescoes depicting rituals associated with a secret society dedicated to the worship of Dionysus, the god of wine, ecstasy and theatre. Visitors move freely through each room as it transforms from a derelict ruin to how it would have existed back in 79 AD. While the real-life Villa is one of Pompeii's must-see attractions, this VR version feels weirdly anticlimactic after the repeated depictions of fire and destruction earlier in the experience. There's a certain novelty associated with moving through a virtual space while wearing a headset, and seeing other visitors also exploring the Villa, being represented as floating busts that glide effortlessly through the space, only adds to it. Rounding off the experience, there are several more interactive exhibits, including interactive tables that allow guests to dig through a layer of virtual sand to uncover hidden treasures like coins, swords and lamps; objects that can be touched to reveal their history on large screens above; and some AI-powered photobooths that overlay photos of guests' faces onto era-appropriate bodies to varying levels of success. Photo: The Last Days of Pompeii While MAD's trio of recent exhibitions has dominated this corner of London's immersive scene throughout 2025, the city has, of course, had several hugely popular projection-led experiences in the past. Frameless in Marble Arch has been displaying the work of artists like Monet, Hokusai and Dalí since first opening in 2022, and Immersive Van Gogh (an experience that was notably reviled by many) ran for many years out of its Shoreditch home, proving that there's a huge appetite for this kind of work. Recently, there's been a notable shift towards creating experiences with a more substantial educational angle, with shows like The Moonwalkers (narrated by Tom Hanks) and Prehistoric Planet now making up the current line-up at King's Cross' Lightroom. While there's constant debate around just how 'immersive' these kinds of experiences really are, they undoubtedly offer a modern way to learn about history that's not always possible within a traditional museum setting, and provides an experience that's both fun and engaging. Much like MAD's previous exhibitions, The Last Days of Pompeii's mix of traditional museum displays with modern technology makes it the kind of experience that's both appealing to younger visitors and satisfyingly informative for their parents, and a step above other projection-led immersive experiences on offer in London. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Last Days of Pompeii: The Immersive Exhibition runs at Immerse LDN near Custom House until 15th March 2026. Tickets are priced from £24.00 and can be booked via Fever. For more coverage and reviews of experiences like The Last Days of Pompeii: The Immersive Exhibition, check out our recent Reviews.

Santa has been propping up the bar in his favourite watering hole and is lacking in Christmas spirit. Can we save the holiday season and get him back on his sleigh, or has he hung up his boots for good? Our review of Humbug, the immersive Christmas dive bar. Photo: Grant Walker Temperatures are dropping, and it's getting dark at what feels like 3pm again, so that can only mean one thing: Christmas is fast approaching. With it comes the return of Humbug, the adults-only immersive Christmas dive bar experience, which previously took over Brick Lane's Truman Brewery and this year returns to its spiritual home of Waterloo, where it first debuted in 2023. The experience, which this time around is at The Vaults just off Leake Street, combines live music, sing-alongs and cabaret with a cast of memorable characters to create a raucous and booze-fuelled evening out that's basically the adult equivalent of going to a Christmas grotto, but with cocktails, swearing and sacks full of innuendo. This edition of Humbug is front-loaded with several immersive scenes for groups of up to 20 at a time. Starting in the Humbug Mail Room, guests are introduced to bumbling mailman Howard (Perry Meadowcroft/Craig Hamilton), who's getting increasingly worried after losing all of the letters due to be delivered to Santa after a few too many after-work cocktails. He's quick to swear in the group as honorary, seasonal Humbug Mail workers and soon tasks them with searching through all the sorting office's pigeonholes for any stray letters bound for the North Pole. Photo: Grant Walker With the search yielding little success, Howard directs guests out of the Mail Room through the 'Die Hard tunnel'. There's no explanation for its existence, and of course, nobody questions it, because if you're given the chance to act like John McClane, you say 'Yippee-ki-yay' and start crawling. On the other side, guests come face to face with Daphne (Savannah Beckford/Heather Gourdie), a disgruntled waitress who has long since mentally clocked out of her job, inside the bar's office, which is doubling as Santa's dressing room for his open-ended residency at Humbug. Daphne expresses some concern for Santa's well-being, sharing that he should have already been on his way back to the North Pole, and if he doesn't leave Humbug soon, Christmas might end up being cancelled. While Daphne has long dreamt of being a singer on Humbug's main stage, an embarrassing moment in her past ended with a pile of vomit on the stage, so she's convinced there's a Christmas curse hanging over her and has vowed to no longer perform. Photo: Grant Walker Johnny (Thomas Fabian Parrish/Joey Bradick), who enters the room at the end of Daphne's speech, has no such issue performing on stage. As the lead singer of Humbug's house band, he's slightly worried to hear that Santa hasn't arrived ahead of his final performance yet, but encourages us to holler and cheer later on when Santa takes the stage. With a strum of his guitar, the doors of a nondescript wardrobe swing open, and guests are ushered past rails of coats and jackets into an elaborately decorated hallway covered floor to ceiling in wrapping paper and bows. While the Mail Room and Bar Office are both well decorated and detailed, the wrapping paper tunnel serves as guests' first introduction to the maximalist design on display throughout the venue. Every inch of Humbug's main space is covered in Christmas memorabilia, including VHS tapes, board games, trinkets and signs for the North Pole. References to classic Christmas films like Home Alone, The Grinch, Die Hard (which is 100% a Christmas film), and The Santa Clause are scattered throughout the space by the dozen, and basically every corner of the venue is crying out to be Instagrammed. If you so wished, you could fill an entire evening just admiring the venue's lovingly curated set dressing. Photo: Grant Walker The centrepiece of Humbug's main space – a gold streamer-lined main stage – sits at the far end of the venue and plays host to Johnny Whiskey and the Barflys throughout the evening, alongside duets from Howard and Daphne and solo performances from Santa, who is meant to be performing for the final time before heading back to the North Pole. Throughout the 2-hour-long experience, several scenes tie into the story set up in the show's immersive rooms, including Howard's ongoing hunt for Santa's letters and Daphne's repeated refusal to perform on her own, but the main focus once the on-stage performances begin is Santa (Curtis Medley/Ryan Freebury) and their refusal to get into the Christmas spirit. Those who have attended Humbug before will immediately notice that Santa has been reworked quite heavily for this 2025 run. Previous versions of the show portrayed Santa as a pint-loving East London geezer, too drunk to drive his sleigh and resigned to staying in Humbug purely because he couldn't stay away from the bar long enough to sober up. In this year's version of the show, he's a charismatic Mancunian who's seemingly got his life together but just can't face returning to the North Pole and delivering presents yet again. Photo: Grant Walker Alongside several modern Christmas classics from the likes of Ariana Grande and Mariah Carey performed throughout Humbug, there are also some deeper festive cuts on Humbug's setlist. Clarence Carter's 'Back Door Santa' turns more than a few heads once people clock the lyrics, and a brief rendition of 'All I Want For Christmas Is Booty', a song from John Goodman's opening monologue in a 2013 episode of Saturday Night Live, shows that no festive song is too obscure to include, as long as it's catchy. In the second half of Humbug, an extended scene on stage featuring Santa wearing a bucket hat and red tracksuit, along with a gold snowflake chain, draws some of the evening's loudest cheers. DJ Pied Piper's 'Do You Really Like It?' and M-Beat's 'Incredible' both blast from the speakers while Daphne, who's sporting a green Team Australia cap, parodies the viral Olympian breakdancer with some wonderfully half-hearted dance moves. While the live band (featuring Tomas Wolstenholme as Ginger Snap on bass and Josh Haberfield/Evie Joy Wright as Rudy on drums, alongside Johnny) put on a great show, on the night we attended, the room's acoustics made a lot of their hard work tough to hear clearly. The sound bounced off the venue's arched brick walls in every direction, creating a muddled mix that made distinguishing the vocals from the instruments nigh on impossible. When The Barflys aren't performing live, and pre-recorded tracks are played, there was no such issue, which sadly results in the live performances - both musical numbers and dialogue scenes - often failing to hold the audience's attention. The accumulation of numerous group conversations also drowned out a good amount of what was happening on stage for all but those in the premium cabaret seats directly in front of the stage. Photo: Grant Walker Outside of the show's cast occasionally moving through the audience and a brief conga led by Howard and Daphne around the venue, the majority of Humbug's runtime is devoid of any audience interaction, besides a handful of the letters written to Santa earlier in the evening by guests being read out on stage. On top of this, one of the standout moments from earlier editions of Humbug – the group visits to Santa’s makeshift grotto hidden in the venue’s backrooms – no longer appears in the production, further reducing the opportunities for guests to interact with the show's cast. While some performance elements have been scaled back for 2025, the food and drinks on offer at Humbug remain consistently strong and suitably festive. Cocktails include the bright green Grinch 3.0, a Festpresso Martini, and the Bah F*ckin' Humbug, which is made up of at least three different spirits and comes with a sparkler and candy cane on top. Food, which comes courtesy of Bang Bang Burger, includes a Chicken Humburger that's stuffed with Brussels sprout slaw and cranberry sauce on top of a fried chicken breast, alongside slightly less indulgent, but still great, beef and vegan options. Those feeling up to the challenge can also take on a side order of 20 pigs in blankets, with more traditional sides and desserts like stuffing balls and waffles also on offer. Photo: Grant Walker As a booze-fuelled evening of festive cheer and sing-alongs, Humbug is an ideal choice for those in search of a Christmas night out with friends or colleagues that's grown-up and leans into the adult humour. Anyone going into Humbug hoping for an experience that's as much an immersive show as it is a Christmas knees-up may leave disappointed, but you'd have to have a heart two sizes too small to stumble out of Humbug and not find yourself more in the Christmas spirit than when you went in. ★★★ Humbug runs at The Vaults near Waterloo Station until 31st December 2025. For more information and to book, visit feverup.com. Tickets start from £22.00.

Image: The Paddington Bear Experience Enjoy an egg-citing seasonal adventure this Spring at The Paddington Bear™ Experience at County Hall on London’s South Bank with an Easter Special Ticket. Available daily from midday onwards between Saturday 28th March and Sunday 12th April, each Easter Special Ticket includes a charming Easter Basket, Paddington ears, Paddington stickers, a selection of Easter treats including a delicious Paw Biscuit, plus access to a marmalade-fuelled Easter Egg Hunt around Windsor Gardens with seasonal decorations and rewards. The experience will be dressed in Easter and spring decorations, filling the space with seasonal cheer, colour, and plenty of marmalade-loving magic. A special Paddington-themed Easter egg installation will also be on display in the recreated Paddington Station inside the experience. Children can display their detective skills as they locate hidden toy Easter eggs, armed with their own treasure map and charming Easter basket. Friendly faces, Mrs Bird and Mrs Brown, will delight with Easter treats along the way. Photo: The Paddington Bear Experience Created by The Path Entertainment Group in collaboration with STUDIOCANAL KIDS & FAMILY Ltd and Lionsgate, STUDIOCANAL KIDS & FAMILY LTD’s agent for experiences, The Paddington BearTM Experience is a unique and fun-filled interactive experience inspired by the nation’s favourite bear, spanning more than 26,000 square feet of London’s iconic County Hall on the riverside of the Southbank. Visitors are invited to step into Paddington’s world and embark on an exciting immersive adventure through some of the most memorable locations from the Paddington stories. Starting with the hustle and bustle of Paddington Station, guests are greeted by a friendly Station Master and taken on a lively train journey through London’s most famous landmarks all the way to the Browns’ charming house at No. 32 Windsor Gardens. Once inside the famous tree-adorned hallway, the Brown family whisk guests into a whirlwind of multi-sensory activities as they need to help Paddington and his family prepare for a very special occasion – The Marmalade Day Festival! Photo: Jonathan Hordle With numerous themed rooms to explore, interactive games, character interactions, and lots of surprises along the way, the adventure culminates in a very special Windsor Garden Street party where visitors have the chance to enjoy the Marmalade Day festival. A range of food (including Paddington’s famous marmalade sandwich!) and beverages are available to all, as well as an opportunity to enjoy fun and games with the Brown family. The Paddington BearTM Experience will capture the hearts of the entire family, no matter the age. The Paddington Bear Experience is currently running at County Hall on South Bank. To find out more and book tickets, visit paddingtonbearexperience.com

This immersive exhibition detailing the legend of Queen Kraka, King Ragnar and their four sons sails into Canada Water's Dock X direct from a successful run in Hamburg Photo: Vikings: The Immersive Experience Over a thousand years on from the Viking age, a new immersive exhibition detailing the story of Queen Kraka, King Ragnar Lodbrok and their four sons has arrived at Dock X in Canada Water, fresh off a successful debut in Hamburg. Mixing 360-degree immersive projections, virtual reality, and interactive elements alongside more traditional displays of replicas and a detailed audio guide, Vikings: The Immersive Experience invites visitors to step back in time to learn more about the time period and bills itself as the UK's largest ever immersive Vikings experience. It's the latest in a string of immersive exhibitions that have graced London in the past twelve months, which have covered everything from Tutankhamum to the Titanic and Pompeii, but unlike those that preceeded it, Vikings: The Immersive Exhibition has placed a far greater focus on creating a cinematic, theatrical experience that's immersive outside of its VR and 360-degree projection sequences. Photo: Vikings: The Immersive Experience The experience begins with audiences seated in the Threshold Chamber for a short video that's projected onto a rock face. Opening with a slideshow of artefacts and tapestries from the era, the film sets the stage for what's to come before transitioning into an animation depicting the 793 AD raid of Lindisfarne - an island off the coast of northeast England - shown from the perspective of a small child and her pet wolf. After being ushered through a door that opens up in the rock face, guests enter the main space and immediatly come upon Yggdrasil, a towering tree that's adorned with hundreds of runes hanging from its branches. While in Norse mythology, it's said to connect the heavens, the middle world and the underworld; within the exhibition, it's the focal point of the VR experience, with dozens of VR headsets sat atop fur-lined swivel chairs surrounding its trunk. With virtual reality headsets on, guests experience a 6-minute-long VR sequence that firmly introduces them to the mix of reality and mysticism that's prevalent throughout the exhibition. The VR experience manages to cover quite a lot of ground in a short space of time, depicting Sigurd the Dragonslayer coming into possession of the mythical sword Gram, complete with a ferocious wolf that snarls inches from your face and vanquishes a number of chained-up men with ease, as well as the first encounter between Ragnar Lodbrok and his future wife, Kraka, where she's given a tricksy riddle to solve before the pair can meet again, and he commits himself to her. Photo: Vikings: The Immersive Experience From here, the scope of the exhibition widens to cover far more than just the Ragnarssons and touches on everything from the Vikings' social structures and craftsmanship to their beliefs and urban settlements. In place of the traditional wall-mounted informational panels you'd expect to see in most other exhibitions, Vikings: The Immersive Experience primarily provided context and key information about the Viking Age through audio headsets, which are given to each guest upon arrival. While entering certain areas will automatically trigger audio to play, and they feature throughout the opening project and main 360-degree immersive show, the majority of the 14+ recordings available to visitors need to be manually triggered by selecting each chapter on the device. Alongside the VR section, the exhibition also contains a number of other interactive elements, which skew towards being family-focused, including an AI-enhanced installation of Kraka, which guests can converse with via a microphone (a disclaimer makes clear that her answers may not be historically accurate); a knot station where they can try their hand at tying ropes in the same way Viking seafarers would have; several interactive maps that chart where the Vikings travelled across Europe; and the chance to see if they're worthy of removing Gram, the mythical sword wielded by Sigurd the Dragonslayer, from a tree, which echoes the sword in the stone at Disney parks. One of Vikings: The Immersive Experience's standout elements is the set design, which helps it distinguish itself from the rest of the city's immersive exhibitions. The vast main space that houses the majoirty of the exhibits has been made up to look like the Forest of Time, a dense woodland area complete with patches of moss and ferns lining the floors throughout, and the atmospheric lighting gives it a wonderful, other-worldly feel that reinforces the mythical elements that appear throughout. Photo: Vikings: The Immersive Experience The exhibition's centrepiece is the immersive projection show, which lasts around 30 minutes and plays out in a huge, white-walled room further into the experience. Guests enter the space in groups every half hour through the 'Mist of Time' – a pair of glass rooms that act as a transitional space between the exhibition and the film, with a huge blast of fog machine vapour filling the rooms before a curtain lifts and guests are ushered inside the screening room. Projections covering all four walls as well as the floor of the space, and the immersive show is visually all-encompassing. In the centre of the room sits a replica Viking longship with a retractable sail, which visitors are free to sit in for the show's duration. Those attending with younger guests can expect them to make a beeline for the longship when given the opportunity, but as you'd expect, space onboard is limited… Photo: Vikings: The Immersive Experience Broken up into over a dozen individual scenes, the immersive show charts the story of Kraka and Ragna from their wedding and the birth of their sons through to their eventual deaths. Most of the content on offer in this room is fairly abstract, with only sparse dialogue on offer to provide clues as to what's being depicted. Visually, it's all pretty dazzling, not least the naval scenes in which the space's longship seemingly sails alongside dozens of other boats on choppy waters and depictions of the clan riding into battle on horseback through an endless red mist, but the lack of context as to what each scene is meant to be cover does lessen its overall impact somewhat. The final two spaces of the exhibition come after the immersive show, and explore the 1904 excavation of a Viking burial site in Oseberg, Norway, and the expansive network of global trade the Vikings built, which is highlighted by a number of items from across the continent and the world found buried alongside them in their graves. Photo: Vikings: The Immersive Experience Vikings: The Immersive Experience's fusing of traditional exhibition elements with modern technology makes it the kind of experience that's both appealing to younger visitors and satisfyingly informative for their parents. Thanks to some wonderful set design, engaging interactive elements and an impressive projection-led experience, it ends up being a step above many of the other similar experiences on offer in London this Spring, and strikes the balance between being both educational and entertaining. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Vikings: The Immersive Experience runs at Dock X in Canada Water until 31st May 2026. Tickets are priced from £23.00 for Adults and £19.00 for Children. For more information and to book tickets, visit feverup.com

With 31 different challenges to take on across 90 minutes, Prison Island London is a fast-paced competitive gaming experience that's equal parts fun and frustration. Photo: Fever Following in the footsteps of the much-loved Crystal Maze Live Experience, which heralded the beginning of the UK's competitive gaming craze, Prison Island is London's latest interactive escape-room-style experience to focus on providing not only a huge variety of different challenges but a huge number of them too. The experience's elevator pitch is pretty simple: Every team of between 2-5 people have 90 minutes to tackle as many or as few of Prison Island's 31 challenges as they like, in any order they like, to earn as many points as possible. Each room can take up to 3 minutes to complete, and groups are free to repeat any challenge as many times as they like, but with such a big line-up, those hoping to tackle all of them won't have much time spare for do-overs. Each team's running score is displayed on leaderboards scattered around the venue, and at the end of the experience, teams receive a print-out of their stats with a breakdown of how long they spent in each room, how many attempts they had, and their final score. An online leaderboard also allows visitors to see how well they fared not only against those playing alongside them across that day but also across all 21 countries that are home to a version of the experience. Photo: Fever Prison Island's games vary hugely from room to room and test everything from balance and agility to lateral thinking skills and communication. Many of the cells contain physical challenges, which will have guests either climbing, balancing, crawling or running, but there's also a healthy number of games that require more logical and lateral thinking and don't rely on strength or accuracy. On the outside of each cell is a small panel, which provides information on minimum player numbers, the game's intensity and a vague one-line description that alludes to the game. While it's all useful information, a good amount of the enjoyment derived from taking part in Prison Island comes from not knowing what awaits on the other side of the cell doors. Photo: Fever Once inside, groups will often need to work out exactly what is required of them, as the clock is already ticking. Those who are really stuck can glean some additional information about each room's given objective by shining the small UV light they were given upon arrival on the back of the cell's door to reveal some handwritten hints, which have presumably been left behind by former inmates, but teams are otherwise on their own to work it out through trial and error. Without wishing to spoil any of the challenges for would-be-prisoners, some of our personal highlights included Butchers Lane, which gives you a short amount of time to memorise and answer questions about the details of a crime scene; The Prison, which had us step into the shoes of Andy Dufresne and escape a prison cell on our hands and knees; and Dive, which has dozens of exercise balls filling the room and blocking a series of buttons on the walls and floor that need pressing to score points. It says a lot about our performance that across all three of these rooms, we only got the maximum points in one of them, but that's besides the point... Photo: Fever It'll come as little surprise that Prison Island is, of course, heavily themed to look like a prison. The show's briefing room has groups stand before a judge (one of Prison Island's staff) to await their sentencing, with flashing lights and sirens that blare when the gavel comes down; many of the experience's cells evoke the feeling of being inside a maximum security facility, containing either steel grating or head-height prison bars, and there's additional set dressing in certain rooms like electric chairs and graffiti to sell the venue's theming even further. Outside of this theming, Prison Island also contains some impressive scenic elements, which all tie into their specific puzzles. The Docks houses several stacked-up replicas of shipping containers that tower over guests as they frantically explore the space. Shark Bay has been designed to look like an underwater climbing wall, and the cell containing Tilt messes with your sense of balance from the second you step inside, thanks to the steep gradient inside the room. Photo: Fever As for the difficulty level of Prison Island's 30+ challenges, it varies massively from cell to cell. While some games are self-explanatory and easy to score big points on (Basket has you throw basketballs into hoops from behind bars, and Laser Gun consists of shooting light-up targets with guns mounted to the floor), others are far more abstract and realistically would require a couple of failed attempts to master. The physical nature of some other games will likely prevent certain groups from succeeding, even if the objective is clear, with Cellblock North and Green Mile both requiring considerable effort to score even just a few points. The replayability built into Prison Island's design lends itself particularly well to the more challenging cells, encouraging groups to retry games multiple times throughout their visit to either best their high scores or give challenges another go once they've got to grips with the objective. While for the most part, all of the challenges on offer at Prison Island worked as intended during our visit, we did have issues in a couple of rooms that prevented us from scoring higher, and two of the cells were closed during our visit, meaning we couldn't complete everything the experience had to offer, despite spending 90 minutes there. If you visit at peak times, you may also find that most rooms are in use at times, though each game's short runtime ensures that waiting for a specific cell to become free doesn't eat into your game time too much. Photo: Fever While it can't match The Crystal Maze Experience in terms of immersion, Prison Island's commitment to providing an action-packed competitive gaming experience means that the 90 minutes guests get to score as many points as possible are hugely enjoyable. It's an ideal group activity for those looking to challenge themselves, and the replayability of the experience means that guests have a pretty compelling reason to return again and again. We may have just scraped into Prison Island London's top 500 for the month, but the sky is the limit for our inevitable return... ★★★½ Total score: 866 [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Prison Island London runs at 5-7 Hornsey Street near Holloway Road. Tickets are priced from £27.90 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit feverup.com

Photo: Jonathan Hordle New images have been released of a giant Paddington-themed Easter egg installation at The Paddington Bear™ Experience, offering audiences an egg-citing seasonal adventure until Sunday, 12th April 2026. With an Easter Special Ticket, guests can enjoy an Easter egg hunt set within the world of Paddington, with seasonal decorations and rewards. This large-scale multi-sensory interactive adventure for all ages is running at London’s iconic County Hall on the South Bank. The unique immersive experience unfolds across multiple themed rooms inspired by memorable locations from the Paddington stories, where guests meet their favourite characters as they participate in interactive games and activities. Photo: Jonathan Hordle Available daily from midday onwards, each Easter Special Ticket includes a charming Easter Basket, Paddington ears, Paddington stickers, a selection of Easter treats including a delicious Paw Biscuit, plus access to a marmalade-fuelled Easter Egg Hunt around Windsor Gardens with seasonal decorations and rewards. Photo: Jonathan Hordle The experience will be dressed in Easter and spring decorations, filling the space with seasonal cheer, colour, and plenty of marmalade-loving magic. A special Paddington-themed Easter egg installation will also be on display in the recreated Paddington Station inside the experience. Children can display their detective skills as they locate hidden toy Easter eggs, armed with their own treasure map and charming Easter basket. Friendly faces, Mrs Bird and Mrs Brown, will delight with Easter treats along the way. Created by The Path Entertainment Group in collaboration with STUDIOCANAL KIDS & FAMILY Ltd and Lionsgate, STUDIOCANAL KIDS & FAMILY LTD’s agent for experiences, The Paddington Bear™ Experience is a unique and fun-filled interactive experience inspired by the nation’s favourite bear, spanning more than 26,000 square feet of London’s iconic County Hall on the riverside of the Southbank. Photo: Jonathan Hordle Visitors are invited to step into Paddington’s world and embark on an exciting immersive adventure through some of the most memorable locations from the Paddington stories. Starting with the hustle and bustle of Paddington Station, guests are greeted by a friendly Station Master and taken on a lively train journey through London’s most famous landmarks all the way to the Browns’ charming house at No. 32 Windsor Gardens. Once inside the famous tree-adorned hallway, the Brown family whisk guests into a whirlwind of multi-sensory activities as they need to help Paddington and his family prepare for a very special occasion – The Marmalade Day Festival! With numerous themed rooms to explore, interactive games, character interactions, and lots of surprises along the way, the adventure culminates in a very special Windsor Garden Street party where visitors have the chance to enjoy the Marmalade Day festival. A range of food (including Paddington’s famous marmalade sandwich!) and beverages are available to all, as well as an opportunity to enjoy fun and games with the Brown family. The Paddington Bear™ Experience will capture the hearts of the entire family, no matter the age. Photo: Jonathan Hordle The Paddington Bear Experience is currently running at County Hall on South Bank. To find out more and book tickets, visit paddingtonbearexperience.com

Image: Secret Cinema/Muse Secret Cinema and TodayTix today announce a spectacular new immersive production inspired by Disney’s iconic blockbuster film franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, sailing into London in February 2027. Secret Cinema presents Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Immersive Adventure is an immersive live production launching exclusively in London. This limited-run marks the first time the franchise has been adapted into a fully immersive theatrical experience, transforming one of Disney’s most beloved cinematic films into an in-person adventure. Brought to life by Secret Cinema’s multi-award-winning creative team, Secret Cinema presents Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Immersive Adventure is licensed through an agreement with Disney Theatrical Group, and invites audiences to step inside a swashbuckling celebration like no other. Featuring cinematic-scale immersive sets, live theatrical performances, dazzling stunts and a live band, this is an all-hands-on-deck spectacle that brings the spirit, humour and adventure of the films vividly to life. For 10 weeks only, guests will be plunged into the legendary world of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, with the freedom to roam richly detailed environments, encounter iconic characters, and become part of the story themselves. Every night unfolds as a high-energy adventure, culminating in a spectacular celebration worthy of the seven seas. Merritt Baer, Artistic Director of Secret Cinema and Co-Founder of TodayTix, said: Get ready for high jinks on the high seas! With epic aerial stunts, fearless swordfights and a cast of your favourite swashbuckling pirates, where better to invite audiences than raucous Tortuga and aboard the Black Pearl for the ultimate cinematic adventure: Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. We can’t wait to open our new flagship venue at Greenwich Peninsula, minutes from The O2 Arena, with the world premiere of Secret Cinema presents Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Immersive Adventure — a journey that we promise will blur the lines between film, theatre and live spectacle in Secret Cinema’s most ambitious production ever. Angelo Desimini, Senior Vice President, Licensed Partnerships & Brand Management, Disney Theatrical Group, added: At Disney Theatrical Group, we are exploring bold new ways to expand our storytelling beyond the proscenium and into immersive, shared experiences. Pirates of the Caribbean is a franchise powered by adventure, music, and iconic characters, making it a world that naturally invites audiences to step inside it. Secret Cinema’s extraordinary craftsmanship and narrative ambition make them an ideal collaborator. Together, we are reimagining how fans engage with this beloved property, not as spectators but as participants in a live experience that is communal, cinematic, and unmistakably Disney. Fans eager to secure their tickets for Secret Cinema presents Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Immersive Adventure can now sign up for exclusive presale access. Tickets will go on general sale on 1st June 2026. Long-term Secret Cinema partner, O2 Priority, will have a presale starting 19th May, with additional presale opportunities via TodayTix, Disney, and Visa. In a recent announcement, Secret Cinema also revealed plans for a long-term flagship venue at Greenwich Peninsula, with Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Immersive Adventure set to be the first production staged in the company’s new long-term home. A short walk from North Greenwich tube station and The O2, along the river front, subject to planning permission, the venue will become a must-visit destination and go-to place for immersive theatrical experiences for London residents and travellers from across the UK and beyond. Image: Studio DJL & Dale Croft Secret Cinema Presents Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean will run in Greenwich Peninsula from February 2027. For more information, visit piratesofthecaribbeanimmersive.com

Audience members become primary suspects in a surreal investigation at a village fete with puppetry and drag. Photo: Miranda Spencer Pearson In this camp and interactive murder mystery, the audience is transformed from passive observers into a revolving cast of suspects when a severed foot is discovered at a village fete. Cosy crime and cosmic horror collide as the indomitable Lydia, performed in drag by Daniel McVey, attempts to keep the ‘bunting and bake-sale’ festivities on track while navigating an absurd investigation. As the narrative peels back the quaint facade of Greenwold Village to reveal sinister machinery at work, spectators are armed with scripts and puppets to inhabit the village's eccentric inhabitants. Delving into the unseen structures and traditions within communities, A Foot is Not an Appropriate Prize for the Tombola is an absurdist murder mystery that encourages audiences to question how authority figures handle and distribute the truth. Writer and performer Daniel McVey said: With the state of the world as it is, sometimes we just need an hour of irreverent campy fun, and I've certainly had a blast creating the drag character of Lydia, and the bizarre village of Greewold with its eccentric residents. However, just because it's full of humour and silliness doesn't mean it can't also explore important themes, and in a time when power is constantly being abused by the mega-wealthy, and they are telling us to believe the version of the truth that best fits their ideology, the show's message feels vitally important. Woven into the plot and its form as an interactive murder mystery, the message of questioning what we're told by people in positions of power is as intrinsic to A Foot is Not an Appropriate Prize for the Tombola's DNA as its absurd and ridiculous comedy. Daniel McVey (he/they) is a writer, director, theatre-maker and stage manager from Nottingham. He has been writing for theatre for the past decade, including Gnaw and Robert (1849) at the Nottingham Playhouse. Their script, Richard of York, was a Top 10 finalist for the Carlo Annoni International Playwriting Award in 2024. This is their Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut. A Foot is Not an Appropriate Prize for the Tombola runs at Attic at Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) from 5th to 31st August 2026 at 15:20. For more information and to book tickets, visit edfringe.com

A live electronic music performance encourages audiences to reflect on the overwhelming noise of social media through mindful, meditative listening. Photo: Alley Scott Inspired by the sonic meditations of American composer Pauline Oliveros, Channel has been created by Jack McGuire as an introduction to communal and attentive listening. Wet Hands (Jack McGuire) provides a welcoming space, creating a live soundscape through an experimental approach to layering sound. Audience members are invited to take part in this collective listening experience and encouraged to contribute to and become a part of the ambient soundscape. Channel comprises a physical and audio environment designed to be a peaceful escape, while also fostering a sense of connection and community. Jack McGuire has previously collaborated with Dutch Kills Theater Company at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Solitary (2019), Temping (2022 - 2024) and most recently Double Take (2025 – present) produced alongside Broken Box Mime Theater. Channel premiered at Assembly Roxy last year at the Edinburgh Fringe and returns as an even more intimate experience for groups of ten in the shipping container space that hosted Dutch Kills Theater’s acclaimed installation of Temping between 2022 and 2024. Channel is part of Dutch Kills Theater Company’s wider programme of performance at the Fringe this year, including Peregrinations (Assembly Roxy), a wordless work of masked physical theatre and puppetry exploring the immigrant crisis in America, Double Take (Underbelly), a non-verbal, physical-theatre collaboration with Broken Box Mime Theater looking at the hidden layers beneath everyday moments, and Noted (Assembly Roxy), a non-verbal physical comedy created with The Back Pack where live hand drawn illustrations bring to life the whimsical and absurd nature of human connection. Creator Jack McGuire said: After attending the Fringe for a few years as a performer and tech, I realised that there is a need for a space to rest. As beautiful as this festival is, and the amount of performance that you can see, it can become quite overwhelming to be consuming so much. When I set out to make Channel, I wanted to make a show that offers a place to slow down from the hectic pace of Fringe. By offering the audience a place to practice deep listening (or their own meditation practice, or just rest) the show becomes a place to have a little reset. We also included some audience participation, in the form of contributing sounds to be mixed into the music, as a way to keep the space active and playful. Each day the music and lights are improvised with the audience energy and participation as the guide. The show is truly created through the act of collective listening. I am excited to bring this work back, and to be in our own space that we can develop into a place dedicated to listening and to rest. Pauline Oliveros’ practice of Deep Listening has been an influence on my performance for a long time, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to continue to share this performance practice.” Jack McGuire is an American sound designer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter who graduated from Juilliard School of Music in 2018. His work focuses on performance, allowing him to take an improvisational and exploratory approach to creating. Jack is an avid collaborator, working on many different interdisciplinary projects, and which has led him to work with Deaf/Non-hearing artists, puppeteers, and mimes. Dutch Kills Theater Company is based in New York, developing and producing new work by emerging artists. Founded in 2011, they brought The Sister and Adventure Quest to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016. This was followed by the critically acclaimed The Providence of Neighboring Bodies by Jean Ann Douglass in 2018, and Solitary—a powerful look at solitary confinement in the U.S.—by Duane Cooper and Blake Haberman in 2019. In 2021, they staged the immersive UK premiere of KlaxAlterian Sequester on demand, and in 2022 presented Intelligence at Assembly Roxy alongside the critically-acclaimed Temping that ran from 2022 – 2024. In 2025 they returned to Edinburgh Fringe with the world premiere of Channel and the UK premiere of Whisper Walk. Dutch Kills has also produced critically acclaimed pieces in New York City and at the Adelaide Fringe. Channel runs at The Cubicle at Buccleuch Place at Assembly George Square (Venue 8) from 5th to 30th August 2026 at 18:00 and 20:30 (Mon-Thurs) and 16:00 and 18:30 (Fri-Sun). For more information and to book tickets, visit edfringe.com

Sex-positive reclamation of the female anatomy through clowning, confession and interactive games. Taking to the stage dressed as a giant vulva, clown and improvisor Sophie Power blends bouffon-style clowning with physical theatre and unhinged interactive comedy to explore why feminine pleasure remains so confronting. CVNT transforms the theatre into a space for collective catharsis, healing, and reclamation through a mix of adult party games, musical sing-alongs, and confessions from the audience. Each night differs depending on viewer reactions and admissions, though the dismantling of bodily shame and the push to shed social anxieties remains the same. The result is a riotous, ever-evolving invitation to find liberation through radical vulnerability and shared laughter. CVNT premiered at Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2024 and has since toured to Adelaide Fringe (2025 & 2026), Melbourne Comedy Fringe (2025 & 2026), Fringe World Perth (2026) and Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2025). Awards include Best Comedy at Melbourne Fringe as well as the Best Comedy Weekly Award and Hollywood Fringe Tour Ready Award. Creator and performer Sophie Power said, I can't wait to bring CVNT back to Edinburgh after award-winning sold-out return seasons in Adelaide and Perth Fringe, and a new run at Hollywood Fringe off the back of the Tour Ready Award! Bearing witness to people's greatest fears and eradicating sexual shame never gets old. I'm constantly blown away by people's response to our collective catharsis and also by what they choose to share on the stage - every night is completely different! Sophie Power is an actor, director, clown and improvisor with over 10 years’ experience. Sophie performs regularly with acclaimed improv companies such as Completely Improvised Shakespeare, Murder Village and Impro Melbourne. She has trained at many institutions, including Ecole Philippe Gaulier (France), the Atlantic Acting School (NYC), 16th Street, Brave Studios and The Clowning Workshop (Melbourne). CVNT runs at The Box at Assembly George Square (Venue 8) from 5th to 31st August 2026 at 20:20. For more information and to book tickets, visit edfringe.com