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Voidspace Live , the two-day festival focusing on interactive arts, installations and exhibits, returns to Theatre Deli near Liverpool Street in June following a sold-out 2024 edition. Taking over the venue across the weekend of 7th and 8th June, Voidspace Live 2025 will feature over 30 shows (including four LARPs, three one-on-one shows, one self-guided audio piece and two Jubensha games), over a dozen installations and four workshops. It's also been confirmed that 15 pieces of work will have their public premiere as part of Voidspace Live. Ahead of the festival's return, we sat down with Katy Naylor, the founder of Voidspace, to discuss how Voidspace first came to be, the success of last year's Voidspace Live, and what to expect from the 2025 edition of the festival. Voidspace Live 2024. Photo: James Lawson Immersive Rumours: Hi Katy, thanks for speaking with us today. Do you mind introducing yourself and telling us what Voidspace is all about? Katy Naylor:  My name is Katy Naylor; I am the Void in Chief of Voidspace, an arts organisation that platforms interactive art of all kinds. Anything from interactive theatre, dance, and opera to interactive writing and interactive fiction that has an art quality to it, with which the audience can either directly engage with or be incorporated into, we're interested in. IR: Can you tell us a bit about the main goals of Voidspace and where it sits within the interactive world? Katy:  I would say there are three goals. One is to make space for people who want to create interactive writing or performance to make that work. Encouraging people who don't currently do that sort of work is really important to me because of how I started. I came from the self-published indie lit mag world, where the ethos is very much ‘everyone should have access to creativity’. In addition to that, it's about fostering a space for people to be able to showcase their work professionally. That encompasses opportunities to perform and get paid for it, but also providing the opportunities to playtest work, to develop new work and to do R&D. In interactive performance, playtesting is really important because you can't tell how your piece is going to land until you get it in front of an audience. The third of our goals is more of a communication piece: getting the message across to audiences, critics, and academics that all of these art forms, which are generally thought of as very disparate, have this core of connectivity, co-creation, and engagement in common. I'm very invested in showing the world that the elements of audience engagement, participation and interaction are something that deserves as much scrutiny, discussion and attention as the environmental and sensory elements of immersion that academia has often focused on. IR: Where did your passion for this first come from? Katy:  I became interested in doing this just through being a massive nerd, basically. I’ve been really interested in immersive and interactive theatre for about 12 years, and one of the big drivers for that was a particular time around 2015, when I was seeing everything I could that had the immersive and later interactive labels attached to it. I saw a lot of shows, and my friends and I had this word-of-mouth network of ‘If you like this sort of thing, you'll love this one,’ and the idea that it's unfair that only the people with access to those word-of-mouth networks should be able to benefit from that made me want to regularise it. Nowadays, I do a monthly newsletter, Voidspace Dispatches, which has listings of immersive and interactive work of different sorts, but I also realised, due to being extremely nerdy and possibly because I'm just the kind of person that likes to really think about, analyse, and pick apart how different mechanics and different shows engage you in different ways, I'd built up this store of knowledge and expertise that just lives in my head, which is great for me because it means I've got loads of stuff to talk about, but in terms of broadening the conversation, it doesn't go very far. So what I want to do is share that information and experience about interactive creators’ practice and ideas about interactivity and expand that conversation. Voidspace Live 2024. Photo: James Lawson IR: You’ve got a book series coming out later in the year that compiles a lot of the interviews you’ve done over the years with creators, right? Katy: Yeah.   The anthology I've published is called  Voidspace in Conversation . It's not all of the collected interviews, to be clear, because in the end it would have come to over a thousand pages, but it's a mixture of selected interviews and submitted essays from various creators. For instance, Chloe Mashiter wrote a piece about the difficulties of branching narrative, and it's structured as a choose-your-own-adventure essay. It’s a perfect instance of form and content coming together. There’s a philosophical piece about the concept of ‘art play’; there are some pieces about people's personal experiences of their own creative journeys with interactive writing in particular; and there's a couple of my essays in there. One is on The Manikins: a work in progress that I originally wrote as an introduction to a limited edition, supporter-only edition of the show's playtext. The aim of all of it is to broaden the conversation. A lot of what I’ve done with Voidspace has basically been out of spite because I've had a point that I've wanted to make, an irritation, and the only way that I can stem that irritation is to do something about it. One of my points of irritation is about the academic discourse in relation to immersive and interactive theatre. It's great what's out there – Punchdrunk in particular gets a lot of attention; some other companies as well, like Shunt, which is an incredible pre-Punchdrunk company, get attention too – but I wanted to see more work from a practitioner point of view that really delves into the nuts and bolts of interaction particularly, because the key in an interactive, immersive show is good audience-centred dramaturgy. Good structure, good world-building, and a solid role for the audience within the world of the show that's been properly thought out and implemented – if you get those things right, like the original version of Bridge Command, Emily Cardings’ interactive Shakespeare work like Richard III and The Manikins: a work in progress have, then you can create true immersion with no money and no set if you stick to those principles like these shows do. And if you deviate from those principles, all the budget in the world is unlikely to help you really effectively connect with your audience. IR: 2025 has been a very busy year for the void, with a number of scratch nights, workshops and other events in the run-up to Voidspace Live, which takes place in June. Can you walk us through what you’ve already done this year? Katy: I’ve been telling people that I've been both juggling and spinning plates. Somewhere down the line, that's turned into me juggling plates. I think that's pretty much how it feels at the moment. The plates are in the air; they may well smash any minute, but I’m keeping going. After last year’s festival, we started to think about how to potentially fund this year's edition. One of the things we did was apply for Arts Council funding. We didn't get any money, but by taking on their feedback, we’ve got a better project out of it. The first round of feedback we got from ACE said that they wanted to see more of a pipeline and more of a legacy than just a one-off festival. So far this year, we’ve put on creator meetups and had a scratch night, as well as run online events, workshops and games nights, which have been really fun. We also applied for a micro-grant from the  Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation  to deliver three workshops introducing people to different forms of interactive writing creation software. Interactive fiction is so close to my heart because that's what the Voidspace was originally about – getting interactive fiction into publishing spaces – when I started the zine back in 2021. After the festival, we’ve got a few nights at COLAB Tower in July, which will be filled with void things, so watch this space. There’s also an online festival we’re planning on doing, giving people access to the world of online interactive art. In short, we've been busy.. IR: And how have you managed to keep all these plates in the air? Katy:  It's really down to the incredible support that I've had from our programme partner, Theatre Deli; my co-producer Rebecca Hampson; venues and folks like Side/Step (who let us do an event at their super cool festival in February) and COLAB; and from a lot of people who have volunteered and given their time to help out. I definitely couldn't do it alone. Shout out to the regular voidunteers: Artemis Redican and Andrew Harrowell, who work on transcripts of interviews for me; Hazel Dixon, who helps me put together listings; Rudy Johnson, who does website stuff; and Neil Willcox, who brought the whole Voidspace in Conversation anthology to life. I didn't realise it was going to come to 800 pages; I didn't think that we were going to fully index it, and it became obvious that it was a really good idea, and Neil took all of it in his stride and has created a masterpiece, so he's my co-editor on that and well deserving of the title. There are also a bunch of people who are helping out with organising the festival – Rebecca Hampson, TJ Wiswell, Vicky Back, Jet Velinga, and a whole load of friends of the Void who will be acting as volunteer stewards on the day. No one is truly alone in the Voidspace, and I really appreciate the way that the community has come together to make this thing - which, without funding or staff, should be impossible - happen. Voidspace Live 2024. Photos: James Lawson IR: Let’s rewind to 2024, with the first Voidspace Live. How was it putting that event together? Katy:  If I'd known what running a festival would entail, I would never have done something as foolhardy as starting it. I had the idea in December 2023 that the way to finally prove my point – that all of these art forms belonged under one umbrella – is to literally put a bunch of them under one roof on a single day and just show people and force them to recognise it. I realised it had to be a one-day or a two-day festival because if you do it over a fortnight, it's much easier, but the theatre people will go to the theatre, the dance people will go to the dance, and the poetry people will go to the poetry. The whole point of Voidspace Live is to get people in on a single ticket, and, knowing that they've got a choice, they're going to get to take part in shows and a couple of creative workshops. What we hoped is that it would inspire people to take a bit of a risk, try things that they maybe wouldn't normally try, and just discover all of the incredible stuff out there. The atmosphere on the day was exactly what I’d hoped it would be. This is going to sound a bit weird, but it felt almost like a wedding, but without anyone getting married, you know? You know when you go to a really good wedding and you've got people who are friends from different eras of your life that don't know each other, but they're all making conversation and chatting and finding out what they have in common? It was kind of like that. For me, in immersive and interactive, that is as important a part of the experience as the show itself. The fact that whatever it is about, people feel compelled to share their experiences afterwards. As an aside, I spoke to John Krizac, the writer of Tamara, who did Punchdrunk 20 years before Punchdrunk. In the 80s he did a show which was a ‘follow a character around a mansion’ show. Even then, pre-internet, fans were coming back and meeting each other, having dinner, and swapping phone numbers. Before the social media age, that urge to connect outside of just the show itself was still really strong. What was great to discover was that the Voidspace had actually become embodied. I always imagine the Voidspace is kind of like a slightly haunted attic. It's very dark and it's very warm; there are ghosts and voices in the walls, but they're kind of friendly. It’s homely, but somehow it's also big enough to welcome everyone. You might feel a little bit like you don't quite know what to expect, but you always feel welcome, and you always feel safe, and you always feel at home. That's probably what underpins the Voidspace ethos in terms of the community space that I want to create, and it was incredible last year to feel that exact energy come into being on the day. Voidspace Live 2024. Photo: James Lawson IR: For 2025, the festival is expanding to be a two-day event. What spurred on that idea? Katy:  The idea originally came from David Ralf at Theatre Deli during a post-festival debrief. The festival went so well; it had sold out and ended up having quite a long waiting list (Buy tickets not to avoid disappointment!). Everyone had such a great time, and from a technical side, Theatre Deli really enjoyed being part of helping to create it. Shoutout to Aneirin Evans, who is Theatre Deli's venue manager and is an absolutely invaluable source of support on the day and has been really involved this year. David said, ‘Well, look, why don't we do it for two days? You can have Deli for the weekend; let's fill every room with interactive stuff. ‘Let’s make it really great,’ and I said, ‘Why not?!’. For 2025, we did an open call to see what was out there, and the response was tremendous. We had well over 100 applications, including ones from big names at Secret Cinema, Bridge Command, and Deadweight. They're all coming to the festival to share brand new, groundbreaking, exciting work for the first time. We’re giving those big names space, but equally exciting, a huge volume of applications were from people I’ve never heard of. This isn't to be arrogant, but I'm somebody who has seen a lot of shows, who talks to a lot of people, who prides herself on keeping up to date with what I think of as the scene, and to discover that I was right and that there was a huge wealth of incredible stuff out there that was just waiting to find its home and its audience has just been the most exciting thing. I'm so looking forward to presenting the work of those artists to our community for the first time. Voidspace Live 2024. Photo: James Lawson IR: What are some of the top-line statistics on what’s coming to the festival this year? Katy: For Voidspace Live 2025, we’ve got over 30 shows. 15 of which are premiering for the very first time. There are party shows from the likes of Mind Control Disco, and we’ve got Uncle Barry's Birthday Party, which was my favourite thing from Side/Step Festival. We also have five or six shows that involve demons or the supernatural in some way. Apparently, we like it weird in the Voidspace, but I'm cool with that… There are four workshops, one self-guided audio piece and a couple of other self-guided installation pieces; there's a poem that takes up a whole room; there's a pervasive game, The Stolen Child, which a dozen people can play across the whole festival, and many more can join in with. We've also got four or five LARPs. There's a new form of interactive entertainment called Jubensha, which is huge in China. It's a mixture of murder mystery, role-playing, and deduction theatre. It's apparently one of the most popular forms of entertainment, full stop, in China at the moment, but it's not really known as yet in the West. However, at Voidspace Live, we have not one but two Jubensha being debuted by people who really know their stuff. We've got one - Spy of the Year Award – from the Bridge Command/Jury Games/Parabolic team – Chloe Mashiter, Tom Black, Hannah Cox Davies, and Arlo Howard. The other is from Dean Rogers, who, back in the day, made Heist, which was an incredible piece of work. He’s now Creative Director at Secret Cinema and is coming to try out his new Jubensha, The Crow Club. We've got zine making; we've got a five-room exhibition of fully playable art, including a game that's set on a boat in the underworld that you control with a rudder, an espionage game that you play using a rice cooker, and an arcade machine that fights back. There's a jigsaw, there's a playable piece of furniture, and at least two solo or 1:1 experiences that you won't have to book for; you'll be able to just drop in when you're between shows. One thing we learnt from 2024 is that people just didn't have the time over a quite truncated single day to see everything they wanted to see, so that was one big reason for expanding it to a weekend, to give people the time to really engage with all this cool stuff. IR: There’s a huge range of shows being performed across both days. Are there any hidden gems you could highlight? What’s the maddest, most out-there concept on offer this year? Katy:  I think my favourite, most bonkers thing on the programme is Save the Raccoon by Yudi Wu,   in which you’re a raccoon in a skip, making trash art for a competition along the lines of an Arts Council or a creative visa application. It’s absurd, it's satirical, and you get to be a raccoon making trash art! How cool is that?! Voidspace Live 2024. Photo: James Lawson IR: There’s also a handful of tentpole shows that were announced earlier in the year too, right? Katy: Yeah. We have a reworking of Faust from Seth Kriebel, Hamlet: An Experience from Emily Carding, and Jury Games, who have been huge supporters of Voidspace Live and did a show at last year's festival that was massively oversubscribed; they’re going to do all of their shows throughout the festival. Unwired Dance Theatre is doing Where We Meet, and the biggest wild card of them all is Deadweight Theatre. The work they're going to share is such a closely guarded secret that even I don't know what it's going to entail. That's going to be the biggest locked box surprise, even for me, which is very exciting. IR: It’s worth noting that you’ve put a lot of work into making sure the festival is as inclusive as possible, right? Katy : Yeah. One of the brilliant things about Theatre Deli and something that's very important to me is access and inclusivity. For our trans siblings, you're not going to have to worry about access to facilities, and if people have specific needs, we will do what we can to accommodate them. Deli also has a really lovely calm room. For people who are neurodiverse, like myself, being on the AuDHD spectrum, sometimes overwhelm is real, and you just need some quiet, a weighted blanket and some nice soothing lighting. Deli are really good at making provisions for that. Even though there's a lot at the festival and it can be quite overwhelming, we are going to do everything we can to keep you happy and comfortable. In terms of access inclusivity, something we learnt last year is that to some people, knowing more about a show and about the levels and types of interaction is an access need. There are ways of making that information available to people who need to know what to expect. Even though the festival has grown, I pride myself on retaining a very personal approach. My email address is voidspacezine@gmail.com , and if there's anyone out there who is thinking about buying a ticket but isn't quite sure or has any specific concerns about it, please reach out because it's really important to me to make both artists and participants feel as welcome and happy as possible. Concessions are for anyone who genuinely can't afford a full-price ticket. It's an honour system; we’re not going to ask questions or ask you to prove it. If that difference is what will get you in, then please come on a concession. We may not have much of a budget to provide the full access offering we would like, but we want to do what we can to welcome people and make everybody feel safe. IR: With such a wide-ranging line-up and some fairly well-known names from within the immersive/interactive world presenting work, it seems like a great opportunity for those attending to see some new work that might be the show we’re all talking about in 2026. Katy: Yeah. To have really established people from the likes of Bridge Command, Jury Games, The Key of Dreams and Deadweight come in and give the first sharings of new work is very exciting. Any one of these things could be the next massive show in the scene, and you'll be able to say that you were the first crowd to see that show being brought to life. Equally exciting, I think, is the number of people who, from our London immersive bubble perspective, are a completely new entrance to this scene as well. The people behind Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party, they're still students at Central. To have made something of that quality before they've even graduated, I think they’re going to be the ones to watch. Only Exit is another emerging artist show ; a really interesting experimental piece where you explore and play with space and directions. It’s the kind of concept I don't think has ever been shown before. There’s also Continuum, which is a show that’s going to last like nine hours. Any one of these things could be the thing that is maybe next year's big show or, almost equally exciting, the crazy happening that maybe 20 people see, and those people are going to carry that experience in their hearts forever. It's going to be their gift and their memory. Voidspace Live 2024. Photo: James Lawson IR: Finally, what do you hope people will come away from Voidspace Live feeling? Katy:  When we’re all in our 70s or 80s, sitting on our armchairs on our verandas, or in our holodecks or whatever it is that people are going to be doing by the time we get to that age, we’ll be sitting there and reminiscing about the shows that had the deepest impact on us and the experiences that have stayed with us. Knowing that there will be people out there who say, ‘Do you remember we got to see the first showing of Spy of the Year?’ or ‘Do you remember that raccoon show? That was crazy. The fact that those memories and those stories are going to be created makes me so proud and happy. To be part of something that will be talked about and reminisced about for years to come, and as with all live theatre and particularly with all immersive and interactive experiences, knowing that in that moment, by getting your ticket and being there, you are witnessing and helping to create something – that is truly special and unrepeatable. Voidspace Live runs at Theatre Deli near Liverpool Street/Aldgate on the 7th and 8th June 2025. Tickets for each day are priced at £55.00. To book and find out more info, visit voidspacezine.com

The Kraken Rum announce their new pop-up immersive Halloween horror experience in London, where the world’s most haunted pieces of art will be on display under one roof. Image courtesy of Kraken Rum. This Halloween, The Kraken is bringing a new kind of existential horror to the UK by opening what could be the world’s most dangerous art gallery. That’s because the temporary exhibition will, for the first time, bring together the most notorious haunted and cursed artworks and objects in the country, all known to have inflicted terror and suffering upon those that have gazed upon them. Curated by art historian and critic, Ruth Millington, the House of Curses comprises six psychologically thrilling themed mini-exhibits, including ‘Cursed Creatures’, ‘Possessed Children’ and modern-day Creepypasta ‘Internet Lore’, with visitors receiving a walkthrough audio guide delving into the haunted backstories of each piece. Artwork by Zac Webb. Images courtesy of Kraken Rum. Entering through ‘Cursed Creatures’, after discovering more about the history of the Kraken itself, guests will find themselves in ‘Ghost’, where they’ll see haunted projector slides from the Birmingham & Midlands Institute as well as original artwork by Zac Webb, painted during his time in residency at Ohio’s most haunted house. Moving through to ‘Skeleton’, the theme of death becomes ever more prevalent, showcased through an original Damien Hirst skull – ‘The Dream is Dead’. Artwork by Damien Hirst. Images courtesy of Kraken Rum. Room four explores the darkest corners of internet lore from Slenderman to Goat Man and Creepypasta legends, before moving through to ‘Dolls’ which hosts one of the UK’s most haunted items – The Grace Doll. Known as the UK’s ‘Annabelle’, this doll, donated by paranormal investigator Danny Moss, has been seen to move inside her enclosed glass box as well as threatening to ‘burn [visitors’] eyes out.’ Dolls on display at Kraken Screamfest: House of Curses. Images courtesy of Kraken Rum. The penultimate room sees visitors surrounded by a series of ‘Possessed Children’ paintings including the ‘Crying Boy’ that was said to have caused homes to burn down in Scotland. There is also the deeply unsettling ‘The Hands Resist Him’ portrait: a horror-stricken painting which seemed to cause the deaths of those closely associated with it. So evil is this work that even the reproductions are said to be possessed with a malevolent force. Artwork on display at Kraken Screamfest: House of Curses. Images courtesy of Kraken Rum. Accessible only after signing a waiver, the final exhibit contains one of the most haunted paintings of them all. This original piece was the centre of a 2023 media storm after it was returned to a charity shop by multiple owners who reported chills, being chased by a demonic figure and one person even having to call an ambulance after collapsing in the painting’s presence. Those who do dare enter will be granted only a short time in the presence of ‘The Unknown Girl’ before being ushered out to the safety of The Kraken Bar. The Unknown Girl on display at Kraken Screamfest: House of Curses. Images courtesy of Kraken Rum. With a menu of cocktails inspired by the haunted artworks, as well as burning sage-laced drinks to ward away evil, shell-shocked guests can begin to unwind in the bar, where they’ll also find a tarot card reader and Zoltar machine for further evening thrills. Art curator, Ruth Millington said: House of Curses is the most intense exhibition I’ve ever curated. From the legend of The Kraken itself to real-life haunted pieces that have inflicted all manner of terror upon owners and artists, this is a gallery not to be missed – providing you’re brave enough. Hauntings, death and horror have been key themes in artwork and objects for millennia and now we’re bringing a variety of those pieces together in one high-risk exhibition this Halloween in Screamfest: House of Curses. Artwork on display at Kraken Screamfest: House of Curses. Images courtesy of Kraken Rum. Tickets  for Screamfest: House of Curses cost £10 and include entry and two free drinks, including a welcome drink. The exhibition runs from 31st October to Saturday 2nd November at The Vinyl Factory, Soho.

Read our review of Taskmaster: The Live Experience. Your time started when you clicked on this article. Photo: Avalon With over 160 episodes of Taskmaster having aired since the show first debuted in 2015, all of which we’ve seen, you’d think we would have known not to take every challenge at Taskmaster: The Live Experience at face value. Much like in the series, there’s often an obvious solution to the challenges put before us in this new immersive version of the show, but we’d be lying if we said that being able to find them while the clock is ticking down was something that came naturally to us.  Taking over DockX, a vast warehouse on the waterfront of Canada Water, Taskmaster: The Live Experience allows visitors to experience what it is like to participate in the popular Channel 4 series and discover first-hand that there's a huge difference between watching someone else do a task from the comfort of your sofa and doing it yourself. Photo: Avalon Taskmaster: The Live Experience is split into two halves - alongside the main ticketed experience, there's also a Taskmaster Museum, which displays a collection of props and artwork from the show's eighteen previous seasons, as well as a recreation of numerous recognisable locations from the show, which are all open to the public without a ticket. Long-time fans of the show will take great pleasure in seeing so many pieces of show history under one roof within the Taskmaster Museum. Items on display include the typewriter used in the opening titles, the first-ever whistle blown by Alex Horne in the show, numerous pieces of artwork by the likes of Joe Lycett and Noel Fielding, and the golden bust of Greg Davies's head awarded to each season's winner. The Museum is a lovingly curated collection of both the items painstakingly created by the show's production team and the nonsense created by contestants, including Fern Brady's toilet seat lid self-portrait, which was painted with raw sausages instead of brushes. Photos: Immersive Rumours Elsewhere in the venue, there's a series of photo opportunities outside of the Taskmaster house, including the huge white statue of Greg Davies that's been a mainstay of the show's garden for several years, Linda the Cow (affectionately named so by Rylan, who christened the cow with the same name as their mum) and the caravan. Also scattered around the venue are numerous activities visitors can attempt while waiting to enter the main experience, including a recreation of the infamous 'Get this potato into the golf hole' task from Series 2 of Taskmaster (let the record show that we managed it in two attempts). Those with tickets for the main experience can expect to have a bit of time to explore all of this, as well as a gift shop before being called into the Taskmaster house roughly 15 minutes after the time printed on their tickets. That may be just long enough to enjoy a Bin Juice cocktail from the bar, but nowhere near enough to take in everything else on offer. We'd recommend setting aside at least an hour to explore all of it, either before or after the main experience. Photos: Avalon Heading into the Taskmaster house, visitors are split into groups of up to 14 people to take on the gauntlet of tasks on offer over the course of 60 minutes. There are two different experiences on offer here - Melon Buffet and Absolute Casserole. Both have four main challenges that everyone takes part in, as well as a final task for the five best contestants in each group. If you want to be a completionist and do all 10 tasks on offer, you'll need to book both experiences separately. For our visit, we took part in Absolute Casserole, which was a combination of mental, physical, and observation tasks. Photo: Avalon We're not going to give away exactly what the tasks were, as that's not in the spirit of the show and may well give readers a leg up over their competition, but each task felt like a faithful recreation of what's typically presented in an episode of Taskmaster. Beginning with some introductory projections and videos of Greg Davies and Alex Horne outlining the rules of the game, the pair explain that in their absence Little Little Alex Horne will be overseeing and scoring our performances in the tasks as we progress through a recreation of the Taskmaster house. Tasks take place in scaled-up versions of the study, lab, garage, entrance hallway, and a scaled-down version of the studio. With the default Taskmaster's Assistant outfit of a black suit with no tie, our Little Little Alex Horne was as warm and friendly as you could ever hope for, with an unwavering love of the Taskmaster that came up in their conversations with the group more than once. Armed with an iPad that displays the remaining times for each task, they commentate on, critique, and champion the performances of everyone in the group. If you crash and burn, you can expect them to make sure everyone knows about it, but equally, they will give you your moment in the spotlight for a job well done. One particularly proud moment, in which we asked Little Little Alex Horne a specific question during a task, led to them highlighting our ingenuity in the post-task debrief (let's ignore that despite that, we got zero points). Based on our time playing through Absolute Casserole, it's fair to say that most tasks had a hidden shortcut to success, much like they often do in the show. The scoring system also mirrors that of the TV show, with five points being rewarded to the best performing in each task, going down to one point for fifth place. Updates to the overall scores come at the end of each task via screens, which live updates as the results come in. In a cruel twist of fate, despite the Taskmaster themself not being present, the scoring can also be influenced by elements outside of the contestant's control. In one particular task, the solution was offered up on a platter to the tallest participant, giving the rest of the group a marked disadvantage. Photo: Avalon Across the four main tasks that everyone participates in, one is a group task that requires contestants to team up in pairs. Again, the key to success was right under everyone's noses, but in the chaos of everyone competing, it went unnoticed until Little Little Alex Horne pointed it out. These gotcha moments are just as infuriating to find out about in real life as they are for the contestants on the show, and you'll likely be kicking yourself for not spotting them sooner. The final task of Taskmaster: The Live Experience takes the form of a studio task, with the five highest-scoring contestants battling it out in front of the rest of the group. Going into this final task, the scores are wiped, and all five finalists start on a level playing field. For the overall winner, there's a medal and complimentary souvenir photo up for grabs, with the audience of lowest-scoring contestants being given one last chance at glory in a mini-task to win a golden duck with 'Best of the Worst' printed on. Reviewing an experience without revealing a lot of the content is a challenge in itself, but all of the above is to say that Taskmaster: The Live Experience delivers on the promise of putting visitors into the shoes of the comedians who take part in the TV series. Long-time fans of the series will no doubt find it a rewarding and enjoyable experience, even if they walk away empty-handed, and those unfamiliar with the show will likely be won over by the sense of humour and quirkiness. The thought put into the creation of the tasks by Alex Horne and the show's production team is easily on par with that of the series and offers plenty of chances for us non-famous people to find out if we'd actually be any good on the TV show. Photo: Avalon The elephant in the room when it comes to Taskmaster: The Live Experience is the price. At peak times, individual tickets can cost up to £100, which does feel far too high, despite the experience's high production values. The show is running a biweekly ticket lottery to purchase up to four £25 tickets, which does alleviate this problem for those lucky enough to win, and off-peak tickets are available at £50 per person, which is a more accessible price point for many. For those wondering, despite our disqualification in one task and a run of low-scoring tasks, we did manage to redeem ourselves in the final task and are now the proud owner of a golden duck. Our companion for the experience also went on to win the final live task, which is something this reviewer will never be allowed to forget. Photos: Immersive Rumours ★★★★ ½ Taskmaster: The Live Experience is running at Dock X in Canada Water until 25th January 2025. Tickets start at £50.00 and can be purchased via taskmasterliveexperience.com For more reviews of shows like Taskmaster: The Live Experience, check out other recent immersive reviews here .

You Me Bum Bum Train, The legendary immersive theatre show, return to London's west end November 2024 after an eight-year absence Photo: Kirk Newmann You Me Bum Bum Train (YMBBT), the legendary, boundary-pushing immersive show has announced its long-anticipated return to London's West End for November 2024. Founded by Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd, You Me Bum Bum Train returns following a near-decade absence. The show was previously named as one of The Times' 25 best plays of the century, won the Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer at The Evening Standard Awards in 2010, was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre at the Olivier Awards in 2013 and was the Barbican's fastest ever selling show. You Me Bum Bum Train is a surreal, exhilarating, euphoric and mind-bending participatory experience that sends its audience, or ‘Passengers’, through a dream-like carousel of scenes, fantasies, and, in some cases, life-altering experiences. Loved by hundreds of thousands, yet shrouded in near-total secrecy, since 2004, YMBBT has redefined what it means to be part of an audience. For the last show in 2015, there were over 120,000 people applying for tickets in the first minute of release. Photo: Kirk Newmann YMBBT will open in London’s Covent Garden in November 2024. The show’s impact depends largely on Passengers having no idea what they are about to experience so they react authentically. Secrecy is therefore an integral aspect of You Me Bum Bum Train, with no details about the production released whatsoever. This ensures the show is experienced at its best, with the proven power to change lives and perspectives. All Passengers sign NDAs preventing them from sharing what they have experienced. The ballot will close at   9pm BST on 17th September .  Each ballot entry will allow passengers to book a maximum of two tickets which are priced at £99.99 + booking fee. Successful participants will receive an email on 20th September with a link to purchase their tickets. All unclaimed tickets will re-enter into a second ballot, the date of which is TBA. There will be a concessionary ballot ticket price for those on job seeker’s allowance.   Photo: Kirk Newmann In addition to experiencing the show as a Passenger, You Me Bum Bum Train relies on a community of volunteers who come together and contribute their time, resources and skills to make a special, meaningful experience for audience members. Without this community, the project would not be affordable and would simply not exist. YMBBT offers free training and certification across production, stage management and performance. Many of the volunteers have gained newfound confidence and skills, and more come on board with each show, many of them ex-passengers who want to contribute to the next show themselves. The ticket ballot for You Me Bum Bum Train opens on 3rd September at 10am via bumbumtrain.com . The show was run from November 2024 in a Central London location.

As the platypus-loving town of Phantom Peak prepares to open its door for the ninth season of its ever-evolving story, we speak to Creative Director Nick Moran about the past, present and future of the open-world immersive experience. Phantom Peak's Starlit Summer. Photo: Phantom Peak Immersive Rumours: Hi Nick! Thanks for speaking with us today. Phantom Peak's new season opens in a few days time, and with it the show will have had 100 total trails since first launching. If you think back to the opening season of Phantom Peak, at the time did you envisage the show hitting a milestone like that? Nick Moran: I think when we started Phantom Peak, we had an idea of what we wanted to do. We knew where we wanted to go, we knew the overall ending of where Phantom Peak was going to get to. I've always known that from the beginning. I was very confident that the trails system - which is kind of Phantom Peak's thing - would be something people would enjoy. But how we did them and how we do the show in seasons, that was something we learned as we went along. If you'd said to me that we'd do 100 trails back then, I think I would have felt quite unwell, considering how much effort it was to get those first 16 up. Looking back now, they feel quite rudimentary. The trails are much more sophisticated now overall in terms of what they do, how people experience them, the things we use and the content involved. That first season was as much of a learning experience for us as for anyone else. IR: How has planning for Starlit Summer been going? The turnover between seasons is so short this time around you must have to start planning the next one as soon as one opens. Nick: Yeah. This is season nine now, and I would say with each season we get slightly better at planning everything in good time. We knew we had a small amount of changeover time between these two seasons so we have been more organised and I think that's really helped us. The town of Phantom Peak is mostly what it is now and while things do change, there's only so much we can do in that time - we're a temporary venue in London and we can't build a skyscraper, you know? Generally, when a season opens I already know three or four trails that I want to do next season pretty much from the word go, and then the rest emerge when the theme does. It's really just trying to work out what the theme is for the next season and how we make it into good fertile ground for stories that move the town along in a realistic way and feels different but also familiar at the same time. Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photo: Alistair Veryard IR: Phantom Peak as a town has constantly been evolving season upon season. There’s been multiple expansions and reworks of areas, on top of a string of new inventions being introduced. Why is it so important to keep introducing these changes to the show as part of each new season? Nick: The thing we've always tried to do with new additions to Phantom Peak is that they fill a gap in what we we need, as well as feel different in the way that people interact with them. For me I'm a content guy - I want to make loads of content that people are excited by. The tangibility is so important, so when we're building those machines and inventions that power the experience, it's all about making it so people will smile when they're doing it. People love the Paracryptic mirrors! They love them so much. It's one of those things you don't know at the time. We'll prototype something like that and then we're like, 'Okay, great, it's gonna be unleashed on 1000s of people. So let's see, let's hope it's everything it needs to be'. It's about building something that's robust and exciting as well. Last season the new addition was Klacky. When writing the trails and planning the seasons, we’re always thinking 'It'd be really good if...' and for a long time we really wanted a text input where you could type anything into it, which is so versatile across stories. While it may not be as big or exciting as maybe a new building or something, for us they're big and complicated and takes a lot of manpower and resources. Also, who doesn't love Microsoft Word's Clippy?! We were basically thinking 'What if we make a real Clippy, but it's a dick?'. Every season for us is a question of what can we do that will delight the audience the most with the resources we have. We're a young scrappy startup company - we're not rich - but we're always just trying to think about customer, customer, customer. Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photo: Alistair Veryard "For me, it's as fun as ever. I think I enjoy coming up with the stories as much as I ever have done. But I think it's consistently the same level of difficulty." IR: The show's first season had 16 trails, but over time you settled on 10 trails (plus a secret one for those who complete them all) being the ideal number for a season. Has it become easier to write them now that number is lower, or has the added complexity made it harder? Nick: The trails are much harder, much more difficult to write now. In season one, there was no real bar for how they should be and every single trail was a new articulation of the world's story. That was exciting enough from our perspective to keep us motivated, but now I'm always like 'Hey, I'm going to tell a story about Perigate this season. What do I want to say that's new about Perigate that I'm excited about? What do I want to say that we've not done before with Perigate?'. For me, it's as fun as ever. I think I enjoy coming up with the stories as much as I ever have done. But I think it's consistently the same level of difficulty since the summer of last year which is probably when we started to hit our stride on how we want to put together the trails. Phantom Peak's Wintermas. Photos: Alistair Veryard IR: You've also shared with us in the past that you'll write several more trails for a season than what ends up in the final show. Can you explain the process of coming up with each season's storylines? Nick: The process is actually really simple. We come up with trails for every character - probably five to eight different ideas for everyone, and then we'll whittle down to the best few. It's a process of elimination, so there's always more ideas. They don't always get written up as full trails, but they'll get quite far along, some of them. In most seasons there's a trail which doesn't work and then it's thrown out probably two weeks ahead of opening. A new trail will come in and basically replace it, because there's always just one that doesn't quite work, and I'm not having people have a bad experience. I'm a perfectionist, so for me, they wouldn't have gone into the show if they didn't work, and they weren't great. I think a couple trails each season, in my opinion, really smash it out of the park. We're always trying to one-up ourselves and write the best thing we can. IR: Which trails from Festival of Innovation were stand-outs for you? Nick: I really liked Some Body to Love - the Halloway trail that involved Jonas. Also, The Last Laugh and Sweet Disposition were my favourites, but it's also a question of personal favourites more than anything else. Oh, and The Very Best! It's great, it's fantastic and had some amazing moments in. Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photo: Alistair Veryard "Phantom Peak at its heart has a comedy bent to it. Comedy is such an important part of the world - it's got to be funny." IR: The Very Best was our favourite from last season. The title sequence and physical trading cards were such a great parody of Pokemon. You've done a string of trails that parody pop culture in previous seasons, are there any trails in Starlit Summer that do the same? Nick: Well, Phantom Peak has always been culturally literate right from the beginning. I think it's about finding something that we find exciting enough to use as a fun hook for a story. You'll be pleased to know that we're doing our first-ever sequel trail. We've never done one of those before, but we're doing a second Monstermon trail because people loved it so much. We always want it to feel like something where people are in on the joke if there are jokes. That it's exciting, that it's relevant, that it's fresh, that it's frothy and funny. Phantom Peak at its heart has a comedy bent to it. Comedy is such an important part of the world of Phantom Peak - it's got to be funny. And drawing on those things that we find funny is very, very important. Phantom Peak's Wintermas. Photo: Alistair Veryard IR: When writing new trails, how do you balance making them satisfying for new guests, but also rewarding for those who have visited Phantom Peak many times and are more clued up on the lore and backstory of the town? Nick: The most important thing is to focus on a good story. If you focus on a good story that is about a character in a situation with a motive, with stakes that you care about, with a journey that you care about, and people understand what's going on from the beginning, then it shouldn't matter whether it's your first time or your final time. The secret trail is always our opportunity to tell something which is very context-heavy. We need context for the deeper fans - that's always the way that I consider that. As for the rest of it, for example, if we do a trail on Dr. Furbish, I'm going to go out of my way to make sure we get something on Dr. Furbish early in the trail, which explains who he is in a different way to how we've done it before. We've got to make sure that someone who's visiting for the first time will have an introduction to it. For me, it's always about making sure that everyone is always reintroduced, but also, I like long-running TV shows, I like long-running things. I can't be assumed to be studying up on it all the time and having a memory of that. Just a little refresher sometimes is needed within that. As long as we make the story good, it's always compelling. With a good hook at the beginning, it's fun and exciting. It takes people on the journey and makes every step clear and accessible and digestible, then no matter who you are, it should be an exciting place to be and an exciting adventure to be on. Phantom Peak's Hallowed Peak. Photos: Alistair Veryard IR: Given you're now over 300 performances into Phantom Peak, and there are breaks between seasons where you can make changes in ways other shows are maybe less able to do, how much of your decision-making for the show is based on audience feedback? Nick:  In terms of the stories, it's always what we think is best. We can't think about what people would want otherwise you end up working in a fan service-y way, and that's probably not healthy for anyone. What people want for the characters is not necessarily what's best for the stories. We're trying to do the best we can without pandering, but also staying core to our values of what we think are the right stories to tell and move the overarching grand plan of where Phantom Peak is going and what the overall story is at the same time. In terms of the experience as a whole, we're very, very customer-focused. We really, really try and make it something that answers to peoples need. For example, the closing ceremony was created because people said 'Wouldn't it be nice if the show had an ending?' And we're like, 'Okay, we'll give you a closing ceremony'. People said 'Wouldn't it be nice if there was something more puzzle-related?' so we did The Innovation Games. That aspect is for puzzle people, because although the trail may have puzzles within them, puzzles are not the focus. Phantom Peak isn't an escape room, although it has escape room elements in it. It's all about stories, exploration, discovery, adventure, characters, situations, motive, and storytelling. We're always trying to work out what we think the customers want from the feedback. Especially on the food and the drinks, we've always been listening, trying to get better and better. The evolution of the food in Phantom Peak is as much of a thing that we've cared about as anything else. People said they wanted slightly more elaborate, more fancy, Instagrammable cocktails. If that's what you want, that's what we'll give you. Video: Phantom Peak IR: There’s been talk of Phantom Peak expanding to other cities besides London in the future. Is there any news on the potential opening of a USA-based experience? Nick: We'd love to launch Phantom Peak elsewhere. We're still in the process of raising investment for it, so that's the big question. Hopefully something on that front will happen soon. We're looking at venues across the United States. I'm not going to toot our horn on this because it sounds arrogant, but we're currently by some metrics one of London's best experience now which is really exciting. We'd love to take it to other places around the world and expand the world of Phantom Peak. There's so much more that we can do with Phantom Peak - Jonas has his terrible, amazing plans for the universe. Jonas has infinite ambitions let's just say.... Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photos: Alistair Veryard IR: If you had to sum up your goal with Phantom Peak in a few words, what would it be? Nick: We're really trying to build a world that people can come to and explore, and have adventures. That's what we're trying to do with Phantom Peak, we're trying to make a true other-world experience. That's always been the goal - it's about building a world and a place that people can feel comfortable in, feel excited about, and somewhere they can feel at home and grow with over time. Phantom Peak's Starlit Summer season begins on 21st June and will run throughout the summer in Canada Water. To find out more about the show and to book tickets, visit phantompeak.com

When Muddled Marauders' Vegetables was first announced to run at a secret location in Clerkenwell last year, mystery surrounded the show’s content. Those who did attend stepped into a dark comedy that focused on an exiled scientist’s experiments to cure all manner of physical ailments by uploading people's consciousness into root vegetables. It was a bizarre and surreal show that defied expectations and was one of the most talked-about immersive shows of the summer, garnering strong word-of-mouth and a string of positive reviews. Recently, we sat down with Nathan Ess, the brains behind Muddled Marauders, for their first-ever interview to discuss how the company came to be, how his unconventional beginnings creating immersive off-grid parties led to the creation of Vegetables, and what's next for the company. Photo: Muddled Marauders Immersive Rumours: Hi Nathan, thanks for sitting down with us today. Let’s kick things off by discussing the origins of Muddled Marauders and your history of putting on interactive and immersive events. It was quite a unique entry into the immersive world for you, right? Nathan Ess: Yeah. A lot of it started with experimentation in rave culture. A friend of mine lived in a tower block in Plaistow, and one year I convinced him to let me throw a New Year's Eve party on its rooftop. It went unexpectedly well; something clicked, and I wanted to see if it had legs. After a few small things gained traction, I started Muddled Marauders with a forest party in Wick Woodland. Everything was sorted, but we arrived there too early, and a police helicopter spotted us. The Park Rangers told us it would get shut down before we started. So it was 7pm, the evening of our first proper event, loads of people getting ready to join us, and we didn't have a clue where we were going to do it. Muddled Marauders 001 in Walthamstow Marshes Photo: Muddled Marauders My friend Lucy and I were biking around North East London, frantically trying to pull it out of the bag. At around 9pm, she called me saying, ‘I’ve found somewhere’. There was this secret forest spot in Walthamstow Marshes, just north of Clapton. By 10 pm, we were setting up. By 11pm, we texted everyone the address. Come midnight, 400 people had arrived, with the party going until 11am. The thrill of it all was instantly addictive. From there, things progressed quite quickly. I think our risky approach to sourcing spaces people hadn't been to before, as well as the playfulness of the design and the music, made it catch on quite quickly. IR: A lot of these experiences are undocumented, and you can’t find much about them online. There is mention of one event you did that involved a huge tunnel maze in the middle of a forest. Can you tell us about that? Nathan:   Yeah. A couple of years deep, we were commissioned by a festival. Up until then, everything we’d done had been in London, but this was for a small festival in Grimsby. In order to help them sell tickets, we were given a bit of money to build something and entice our crowd up there. As well as building a stage, we built an 800-metre-long maze with 14 immersive scenes themed around a narrative of relationships and sexual anxiety called The Corridor of Uncertainty. It was actually based on a really shit drawing I’d done a couple of years earlier... The Corridor of Uncertainty Photo: Nathan Ess The maze only opened for 2 hours, right in the middle of the second night. It was designed for people to get completely lost in, with 3-metre-high walls built from poles and thick black sheeting. You’d go around in circles and might be walking for 5 minutes before you’d end up in an STI clinic being told you’ve contracted a rare infection. Turn a corner and you're apologising to all your exes. One doesn't care and still loves you; the next is calling you a prick and hitting you violently. A scene within the maze Photo: Muddled Marauders You’d be wandering again and enter a surreal restaurant with tiny tables ready for your first date - the whole thing was designed to be really awkward. Couples therapy was one of the best bits. All of it within the context of the maze, along with the hysteria of the night, had this punchy impact that resonated a lot with people. IR: It seems like you were doing your own version of a You Me Bum Bum Train experience… Nathan:  I think Bum Bum Train is the best in the business, and their production is essentially a giant maze. I strongly believe that the more labyrinthine the structure, the more the participants will get enveloped in whatever experience they are going through. Being isolated from other people you know during an experience also heightens it 10 times over. I wouldn’t personally compare what I’ve done to YMBBT, given how big and good they are, but we share views on what creates impact. Set builders working on the entrance to the 800-metre long maze Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: Are there any other events you created around that time that stick out? Nathan: 'Never Have We Ever', which was in a huge abandoned school in Poplar, sticks out. There was also one in an empty hotel and another in a care home, which were pretty memorable. The best one we did was in three internally conjoined mansions in Islington. We commissioned and gave individual rooms to people with different ideas they had pitched, which they then brought to life. This created a fusion between festival, immersive experience and party - but with a distinctly debauched, underground London feeling. It was so big and mazy that we gave people an A3 map when they arrived to help them navigate it. I remember it being incredibly difficult to figure out how to leave, and often people just gave up trying. It went on for two days and was a real melting pot of the different cultures existing in London at that time. It also birthed Burt - a fictional Head of Promotions for Muddled Marauders who hates his job, which we made using stop-motion animation. Burt became a staple of the brand. Video: Muddled Marauders I think we reached the limit of how far we could push the format within the constraints of off-grid events with that particular production. Due to them being unlicensed events and the fact that the majority of the buildings we’d acquired were squatted, the amount of time and financial investment that would go into them wasn’t sustainable when there was always the risk of the police shutting it down before it started and not being able to make any of that money back, even if we were lucky that this only happened once. IR: One of the things I imagine you took away from creating all of those off-grid shows was the ability to make something out of nothing and overcoming unexpected problems. Would you say that was a good training ground for where you are now? Nathan: Yeah, they were pretty hardcore, and we constantly felt like we were trying to achieve something impossible. It needed pretty militant production skills, all the while trying to retain the focus on developing a fluffy and mysterious identity with actors and storylines. We've always had a strong team; Muddled Marauders stalwarts such as Joe Brann and James Phillips (Ariel Bold) have worked on pretty much everything, alongside an always massive crew that bring it all together. It makes unexpected problems much easier to overcome when you have a load of ride-or-die partners. Preparations for a party in an abandoned school in Poplar Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: When did the idea for Vegetables first come to you? Nathan: At a certain point, I got burnt out, so I moved to Sicily for about 8 months, living on a farm where I fed chickens. While out there, I started writing some scripts and concepts to form the basis of a transition into pure immersive theatre, and Vegetables was one of them. I finished the first draft and spoke to this Brixton-based company called BOSI, who suggested applying for Arts Council DYCP [ Develop Your Creative Practice ] funding, which was successful. I started refining Vegetables with Dan Wye - a drag performer (Séayoncé), stand-up comic and dramaturg. He was brutally honest, and it was such a steep learning curve. We completely rejigged it all, and I'd say he categorically made me a much better writer. Tom Duthie also really helped with the final edit of the script once we got the main project grant from ACE. IR: For those who didn’t attend Vegetables, how would you describe it? Nathan: It was a really dark comedy set within the underground tunnels of an old fire station in Central London. I don’t particularly enjoy describing the story itself, but the aim was to create something that people didn’t realise was theatre - let alone a comedy - until well into the experience. Lots of people knew they were coming to some kind of show, but many didn’t (including my mother), and the team and I took great pleasure in fucking with people’s expectations with the help of the incredible actors and design team led by Ellie Koslowsky (who was nominated at the Stage Debut Awards for Vegetables). 11 people could experience it per show. In terms of influences, Charlie Kaufman, Julia Davis, and Black Mirror were the primary ones. Ultimately I wanted it to be unhinged, subversive and well executed. Vegetables Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: There was also a community outreach aspect to the show that I think people might not be aware of. Can you tell us about that? Nathan:   Yeah. The venue, which was an old fire station in Clerkenwell, was previously occupied by the Museum of Homelessness  and The Outside Project , which offers shelter for LGBTQI+ people with lived experience of homelessness in London. We had an outreach strategy led by our producer and Museum of Homelessness founding member, B.Lain, and we allocated a third of the tickets to that community. The idea was to create a show that this community felt empowered to go to. A lot of communities don’t feel like the traditional, or even mainstream immersive theatre world is accessible, so by doing it in that space, it allowed us to flip that a bit. We also had workshops as part of the show at the Old Diorama on set design, acting, and sound design, and the products of those workshops were integrated into the show itself. The attendees of all those workshops had lived experience of homelessness. Clerkenwell Fire Station, the former home of Museum of Homelessness and The Outside Project Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: When Vegetables was first announced, there was real secrecy around it. By and large within immersive theatre, especially post-COVID, that seems to have been left behind as it feels more financially risky. Where did the desire to be secretive about what the show's content and story come from? Nathan: You only really get those hairs that stand up on your neck when you go into something a bit blind or when there are surprises. Whether that’s achieved or not, I'd rather prioritise the experiences of those who are willing to take a chance on something than put out a trailer that puts a wet flannel on it all just to appease incurious people. This isn’t to say that I don’t believe in marketing or an online presence. I love the science of marketing; I just prefer having fun with it and using it to add to the world of the production, like with Burt. For Vegetables, the Clerkenwell Bio Botanics  website we used to entice people to the show   took a serious amount of time to plan and build, but it worked despite at no point revealing it was secretly drawing people into a theatre show. I’m interested in pushing this side of things further. Vegetables Photo: Annie Tobin IR: In the last year, we've seen a few crowdfunders launched for various immersive shows, which reflects the fact that, obviously, getting funding for any theatre project is hard at the moment. If people are in a similar position to you and are looking to secure Arts Council funding, what advice would you give? Nathan: I think finding the right bid writer is important. I worked with an incredible bid writer and theatre-maker called Rosa Thomas, who was so invested in the project but also knew Arts Council funding applications like the back of her hand. I'm good with formal writing, but I have no doubt that I would not have gotten the funding without her. The first draft should come from you, but definitely do it with someone else. The second thing is to not be overly disheartened by the narrative around Arts Council. Even though there's less funding available overall, there is an impetus for them to fund new, grassroots projects and practitioners. IR: You mentioned earlier doing workshops as part of Vegetables, and you’ve also previously worked with the Museum of Homelessness. Can you tell us a bit about why doing outreach is so important to you and the company? Nathan: We live in a broken society, and we need to look out for each other. As much as I try to keep Muddled Marauders a bit aloof, it's crucial that everything we do is welcoming and approachable to those who are vulnerable, in whatever capacity. Particularly with how much of a shitshow everything is. This has been the case so far, and I’m determined for it to continue. As for the Museum of Homelessness, they're an incredible charity run by activists and creative pioneers, and we're long-term collaborators. They’ve now got a physical museum in Finsbury Park ,  and their second exhibition has just opened. As with last year, we've contributed a recurring fictional pirate radio show called Riot FM to that exhibition. Previously we designed an award-winning immersive show for them called Secret Museum ,  which explored the stories of those who experienced homelessness during the pandemic. We took stories donated to the museum and left clues and installations throughout the streets of Waterloo, culminating in guests finding our physical pop-up museum with live performances of those stories, told verbatim. Secret Museum by Museum of Homeless Photo: Museum of Homelessness IR: Looking to the future, what are you working on now? Nathan: I’m currently on the Senior Production Team for the current iteration of You Me Bum Bum Train . Muddled Marauders has taken a temporary side seat while I've been working on that, but it's been worth it. Next up for Muddled Marauders is our new show, which I am extremely excited about, but that’s all I can say for now. We’re also fundraising for the company's next chapter, as we’re looking to make some chunky steps forward. Find out more about Muddled Marauders at muddledmarauders.co.uk or via their Instagram . You Me Bum Bum Train are currently fundraising for War Child with a prize draw to win tickets to the show, which can be entered here . You can donate to Museum of Homelessness here , and The Outside Project here .

Image: Secret City The Perfect Bite, A Dinner Experience inspired by Rian Johnson's Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery takes a bite out of the captivating and thrilling universe of the Knives Out film series. This immersive and interactive event will have guests on the edge of their seats as they dine together and work to uncover a dark truth. In collaboration with Netflix, Secret City presents a one-of-a-kind murder mystery dinner experience launching for the first time in London. Photo: Secret City As a member of the culinary industry elite, you’re invited to an exclusive event hosted by acclaimed chef Maribelle Moore. Shortly after you arrive, Maribelle shockingly reveals that the menu she’s created for the evening will expose a dark secret about the Salty Six, the renowned culinary supergroup formed when they were students. With the other members of the Salty Six also in attendance, tensions begin to run high, and it isn’t long before a murderer strikes. Photo: Secret City Luckily, one of the world’s best detectives, Logan Locke, a contemporary of the famed detective Benoit Blanc, is on the scene to investigate and help you decipher the clues hidden within Maribelle’s menu. Each course contains vital information, and it’s up to you and your team to sift through the evidence and determine whodunnit. As you feast on food-based puzzles, you’ll unravel the twists and turns to solve this captivating mystery. Photo: Secret City Rally your friends together in your finest threads and experience Gaucho City of London. What was once the historic silver vaults of the Bank of England, is now a superb steak restaurant in London’s historical financial district. Enjoy an elevated 4-course meal while solving a thrilling whodunnit with a live cast of intriguing characters. The Perfect Bite has previously welcomed fans in Toronto and Vancouver, selling out for 3 consecutive months, serving over 3000 guests at the renowned Peter Pan Bistro. Photo: Secret City Secret City is a digital and location-based experience design studio with a multi-disciplinary team that builds digital and IRL experiences rooted in immersive storytelling, game mechanics and user experience design. Secret City blends theatre, gaming, technology and UX design to activate historical sites, museums and dormant spaces for fans who keep coming back. Established in 2014, Secret City has animated some of Toronto’s most notable landmarks: Casa Loma, George Brown House, Old Mill Toronto, The Village at Black Creek, Chinatown and Toronto’s waterfront with over 25 live immersive games, large-scale events and digital products. The Perfect Bite runs from 4th June 2025 at Gaucho City of London near Bank. Tickets are priced from £140 per person. For more information, and to book visit secretcityadventures.com

Deadweight Theatre debuts an immersive show that defies categorisation. Performed for an audience of just one, The Manikins: a work in progress is an extraordinary experience for those lucky enough to attend. Jack Aldisert in The Manikins: a work in progress. Photo: Rebecca J. Windsor. Scene 1. We receive an email with nothing written inside. Attached is a script describing us opening the email. "They open the attachment and begin reading. It is the first page of a play in which they are the protagonist. The stage directions describe the moment they are currently experiencing. They don't know how to feel about this." Scene 2. Weeks later, we are sat in the garden of St. Peter's Church in Bethnal Green. A man in a black turtleneck enters the courtyard and introduces himself. We follow him inside the church and descend into the basement. Two chairs are positioned in the middle of the space, facing each other. We take a seat opposite the man in the black turtleneck and ███ ████ ███████ . --- Usually when reviewing an immersive show, we're very conscious of how much to reveal about the experience. Often you need to mention certain elements of what happens in order to discuss and dissect it properly. It's a delicate balance between revealing enough to get people's interest, but not so much that there are no surprises left. With The Manikins: a work in progress - which has just started its sold-out six-week run at Crypt in Bethnal Green - explaining anything that happens in the show would ruin it. Even if we were to describe it, it'd make very little sense anyway - you need to experience it first-hand for it to have meaning. What we can say, though, is that The Manikins: a work in progress is a singular experience that defies categorisation and is unlike any other show we've ever attended. Serena Lehman in The Manikins: a work in progress. Photo: Marc Tsang Every performance of The Manikins: a work in progress is for a single audience member, who also serves as its protagonist. There's no hiding for those who attend the show - they're front and centre for the duration - and end up being as much a performer and collaborator in creating the experience as the two cast members (Jack Aldisert and Serena Lehman) alongside them. Knowing that you're the sole focus of the show when you're in it is a daunting prospect. The closest comparison most immersive theatregoers will have to the opportunity The Manikins: a work in progress offers are the 1:1 scenes in Punchdrunk's large-scale shows. While on the surface it's an apt comparison to make, this show is an entirely different beast. For much of its duration, it's unclear where the show ends and the real world begins. It exists in the liminal space between dreams and reality. There are contradictions, improbabilities, and moments so confounding that your understanding of what is and isn't real anymore is destroyed. It’s a disorientating experience that has you questioning everything around you, including the words coming out of your own mouth. The choices thrust upon you hold so much weight that they're almost crippling, and it's hard to remember if the decisions you made were chosen by you or another version of yourself. After a certain point, you're so far down the rabbit hole that it's impossible to see the light at the surface. Serena Lehman and Jack Aldisert in The Manikins: a work in progress. Photo: Marc Tsang In the days since we attended, the show has burrowed itself into our subconscious to a degree we didn't know a piece of theatre could. We'll be processing it for weeks to come, and it's not something that we'll ever forget. In the simplest possible terms, this is the best immersive show of 2024, and it may take many more years for anything else to come close to it. ★★★★★ The Manikins: a work in progress runs at Parabolic Theatre's Crypt in Bethnal Green from 3rd June to 13th July 2024. Tickets are currently sold out, but you can visit themanikins.com to find out more about the show.

This Spring,  Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition , a new hi-tech experience will open its doors at Immerse LDN at Excel London Waterfront on 28th March 2025. Photo: Tutankhamun - The Immersive Exhibition After hugely successful runs in twelve other cities around the world, the exhibition invites visitors to step back in time and immerse themselves in an exhilarating journey, discovering ancient Egypt, and the myths and mysteries surrounding Pharaoh Tutankhamun as never before.   Endorsed and supported by the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo and created in collaboration with Egyptologists and historians,   the exhibition is set over a vast 26,909 sq ft space and features one of Europe’s largest immersive video mapping rooms with 8-metre-high projections. Blending cutting-edge technology with Egyptian history, the London exhibition will transport visitors through six creatively designed galleries that delve into the fascinating lives of the ancient Egyptians.  Photo: Tutankhamun - The Immersive Exhibition   Guests will enter via an infinity room with a walking Anubis before being presented with captivating background stories about Egyptian civilization alongside carefully curated replicas and artefacts. The experience continues into a huge immersive video mapping room which recounts the rich history of Egypt, its natural landscapes, cultural heritage, the life of Tutankhamun, his tomb, and its groundbreaking discovery.    During the 30-minute immersive movie, the moment of the discovery of the tomb is described in a recorded interview of Howard Carter, the famous British archaeologist, adding a layer of authenticity to the experience. Visitors will also embark on a 360-degree seated virtual reality experience, journeying into the mystical Egyptian afterlife before entering yet another hi-tech space where they will witness a hologram presentation, bringing to life the entire mummification process of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.  Photo: Tutankhamun - The Immersive Exhibition   Finally, the experience invites visitors to step into an interactive digital metaverse walk-through of the Valley of the Kings, exploring Howard Carter's basecamp, and reliving the monumental moment of the 1922 discovery in its full glory. At the end of the experience, every visitor will be able to capture a memento of their day with a photograph in the AI photobooth where they will be transformed into a citizen of ancient Egypt.     The approximate 90-minute journey through ancient Egypt's rich history and mythology features a wealth of educational and informative displays, historical documents, original artefacts and replicas from ancient Egypt, and has been designed with children, families, schools and history enthusiasts in mind. The soundtrack has been composed specifically for the experience and is performed by an orchestra, immersing visitors further into the magic of ancient Egypt. Photo: Tutankhamun - The Immersive Exhibition   Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition has had over 1.8 million visitors in cities including Madrid, Hamburg, Cairo, Sao Paulo, Barcelona, Vienna and Malmö.   Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition run from 28th March - 29th June 2025 at Immersive LDN, Excel London. Adult tickets will be priced from £20, with children priced from £15.50. Tickets are on sale from 31st January 2025, and the waitlist is now open.

2023's best immersive show returns in an expanded form, bigger and better than ever before. Bacchanalia is an unmissable piece of immersive theatre. Photo: Akil Wilson When Bacchanalia was first staged at Crypt in Bethnal Green back in 2023, it was a sensation. Off the back of a cast made up of some of the immersive scenes most recognisable faces and the promise of a fresh take on the Greek tragedy, the show's initial run sold out in just over two weeks - long before the doors to Thebes opened. It was an intense, intimate, and unforgettable immersive experience that proved the next generation of immersive creators could deliver shows as impactful and memorable as Punchdrunk has been doing for so long, with a fraction of the budget and resources. When we reviewed the initial run of Bacchanalia, we called it the best immersive show of 2023 and said Sleepwalk Immersive had 'captured lightning in a bottle'. With this 2025 version of Bacchanalia, which is playing at Hoxton Hall until 6th April, Sleepwalk Immersive has outdone themselves. Expanding the show with additional storylines, characters, more one-on-ones, and a hell of a lot more space, their adaptation of Euripidies' The Bacchae has improved on the version presented at Crypt in every possible way, and they've delivered one of this year's must-see immersive shows. Photo: James Lawson Bacchanalia tells the story of Dionysus - the god of wine, pleasure, and theatre - returning to their birthplace of Thebes. Angered by the city's refusal to acknowledge their divinity and seeking to punish those who wronged their mother, the arrival of Dionysus throws the House of Thebes, made up of the recently inaugurated Mayor Pentheus and their mother Agave, into chaos as they struggle to keep the god's influence over the city and themselves at bay. The audience, who all wear black hooded cloaks for the duration of the 90-minute show, has the freedom to explore the venue and follow whichever characters they wish. Sleepwalk's adaptation of The Bacchae has a distinct 1960s influence. There's a direct comparison being drawn between the rapidly growing chorus of Bacchae that Dionysus has under their spell, full of those happy to cast aside societal expectations in favour of ecstasy and radical freedom, and the Nixon-era counterculture movement that rejected mainstream culture, embraced free love, and came to define a generation. Further reinforcing this aesthetic, posters scattered around the venue for Pentheus' mayoral run that bear a striking resemblance to those Richard Nixon had during his campaign, a soundtrack made up of songs from the era, and several costume designs that have seemingly been ripped straight from '69 Woodstock all help tie together the image of '60s Americana. Photo: James Lawson In comparison to the show's previous outing at Crypt, the move to Hoxton Hall has afforded the show some much-needed breathing room. Within the tight confines of Crypt, there was a sense that Bacchanalia's story was far bigger than the space available - it was an epic story, forced into being told at a small scale. With their upgrade to the much more spacious Hoxton Hall, the story now has a venue far better equipped to contain it. Thematically, it's a wonderful match for a narrative about Dionysus - the god of theatre - and being able to explore the seldom-seen backstage areas of such a venue is exciting enough in its own right, but it's made all the more exciting when it's packed full of world-class performers and an audience eager to chase after them. Of course, with that increased space comes a change to how audiences will experience the show. Spread across all four floors of the Grade-II listed building, there's a lot more navigation of tight hallways and corners needed to keep up with everything going on in Thebes. It's impossible to catch everything in one visit, but for fans of Punchdrunk's work, it's no doubt a welcome return to the familiar feeling of being lost in a labyrinth of stairwells and corridors with intense FOMO. Exploration of every corner of Hoxton Hall is highly encouraged, even if it's just to avoid finding out later there were entire areas of the venue you missed out on (something we realised had happened to us after the show...). Photo: Akil Wilson For half the audience, their introduction to Bacchanalia begins on the top floor with Agave (Fania Grigoriou), who's awoken from a nightmare and slowly begins to get ready for her son to be sworn in as Mayor of Thebes. At the same time, several floors below, Pentheus (Christian Loveless) is sitting with an old friend, Tiresias (Fionn Cox-Davis), who's recently returned to the city and brings with him news about the 'divine crusade' he had been tracking on his journey home. Pentheus, who's on the verge of being officially made mayor, is dismissive, believing that Dionysus (Peter Broughton) is neither a god nor a threat to the citizens of Thebes. It'll come as little surprise that Dionysus is in fact both, and the city will soon be succumbing to his wishes. Photo: Akil Wilson Nearly all of Bacchanalia's biggest moments, including Pentheus' inauguration as mayor and the show's climactic final moments, now take place both on the raised stage and in the centre of Hoxton Hall's Main Hall. With a two-tiered balcony overlooking the space, audience members can view these scenes from up in the gods or experience them up close on the ground floor as if they were citizens of Thebes. Having the space to let these key scenes spread out over a much larger area than at Crypt makes it far easier for audiences to get a clear vantage of what's happening, and the space's verticality allows moments like the arrival of Dionysus (Peter Broughton), who first appears under a spotlight on the first floor before sprinting through the balcony seating and down the stairs onto the ground floor, to shine. There's also a whole host of moments that happen in the small confines of Hoxton Hall's backstage area that weren't present in the show's previous outing. Tiresias, who makes use of every surface and ledge throughout Hoxton Hall's stairwells as they traverse the venue's multiple floors, is a wonderful expansion on the similar scenes in Bacchanalia's Crypt run, which were limited to a small staircase at the rear of the main space. As for the power struggle between Dionysus and Pentheus, the wonderfully tense interrogation scene between the pair, which now takes place behind a closed door for a select few, is a highlight. With Pentheus believing he has the upper hand over a disguised Dionysus, his confidence and self-righteousness are felt with every line, right up until Dionysus' voice settles back into its usual cadence and the mask drops. Photo: James Lawson Nymph (Ruth Howard) and Xanthias (Jordan Ajadi), who make up the chorus of Bacchae and are never far from Dionysus' side, both move around the venue with abandon and grace thanks to Howard's excellent movement direction. The pair twist and throw their bodies in symmetry, perfectly encapsulating their devotion to Dionysus, who will often command them with the flick of a wrist or pointed finger. For Agave, their slow descent into becoming one of Dionysus' followers is portrayed brilliantly by Fania Grigoriou, who sells the enchantment Agave finds themselves under in the latter half of the show with zero inhibition and plays the family matriarch with warmth and love in the first half - something that makes their actions in the show's final moments all the more impactful. The biggest additions to the show's story come in the form of Semele (Maya McQueen) and their former lover, Zeus (played by Rob McNeill), who is the only new character added for the Hoxton Hall run. While Semele was present in the Crypt version of Bacchanalia, their story has been expanded considerably, with numerous scenes in which Zeus and Semele tenderly push and pull against each other, as well as moments where Semele can silently observe the citizens of Thebes. Photo: James Lawson Bacchanalia has been a project seven years in the making for Sleepwalk's Artistic Director Sebastian Huang. From humble beginnings as a show for one audience member first conceived during his studies, through to the two sold-out runs at Crypt and now, taking over Hoxton Hall, it's clear that his passion for adapting The Bacchae into an immersive form has borne fruit. Bacchanalia is an unmissable immersive show that's up there with the best work London has to offer, and with this latest iteration of the show, the Sleepwalk team have firmly established themselves as some of the city's best new creators. ★★★★★ Bacchanalia runs at Hoxton Hall until 6th April 2025. Tickets are priced from £54.00 and can be purchased here . For more information about the show, visit sleepwalkimmersive.com

Leo Doulton's collection of highly improvisational, operatic shows gives audiences the chance to influence and shape their wyrd worlds in unique ways. Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton The Uncanny Things Trilogy is a series of shows fusing immersive theatre with operatic performance. Set within a world very similar to ours, each show invites audiences to come face-to-face with an Uncanny Thing, a supernatural being that has the power to change and shape the world around it in both positive and negative ways. Through a series of rituals, bargains, and deals, audience members are given the freedom to decide how each show unfolds, with the consequences of those choices potentially impacting the other shows in the trilogy. With a cast of five performers, all of the cast's dialogue is delivered through improvised song, though the audience is under no obligation to also sing. Taking place across several tunnels beneath Southwark Bridge at COLAB Tower near London Bridge, the audience takes on the role of local residents who are there to help decide how best to manage the power and influence the Uncanny Things have over the borough and its residents. Over the course of three evenings, we attended all three shows in the trilogy, which includes Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (first performed at COLAB Tavern in 2022), Come Worship Our Uncanny King (first performed as part of Voidspace Live 2024 ), and Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (which debuted at COLAB Tower during this run). All three shows put the community in a different position of power against the Uncanny Things and offer unique ways of interacting with and shaping the world. Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton While the trilogy can be approached in any order, Come Bargain With Uncanny Things acts as the logical introduction to this wyrd world. With deep lore, a whole host of mechanics and information to quickly get your head around, and a sense that the decisions made by audiences can have real consequences (both positive and negative), it may initially be an overwhelming experience for those who are unfamiliar with the kind of folklore that deals with fae, changelings and hellkins. At the start of the show, the community is presented with two requests from local residents that they need to investigate. During our visit, these included an elderly woman hoping to be granted more time to connect with her family before passing and a blossom tree whose glowing leaves were concerning those who lived nearby. In order to deal with these requests, the audience must get advice and guidance from Guildmaster McCall (CN Lester), The Wyrd Gazer (Amy Kearsly), and Carol (Sarah Griffin), the local council representative, as to how best to approach the unwieldy Uncanny Thing, who will seek out any loophole possible to push back against the community's demands. For the community to achieve what it wants, it needs to stay on top of what's happening in all corners of the space. Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Those working with The Wyrd Gazer must plan and enact small rituals to gain valuable information from the Uncanny Thing, as well as solve puzzles to craft potions that temporarily change the Uncanny Thing's form. This informs how those working alongside Guildmaster McCall approach the Uncanny Thing for the larger invocations to solve the community requests, as that valuable information on its true nature informs how best to approach it. Those creating small, handmade offerings for the Uncanny Thing need to also be aware of any new information gained from the others groups so its likes and dislikes can be taken into account when trying to win its favour. Audience members who have experience playing games like Dungeons & Dragons or regularly do roleplaying games will likely find it easier to get their heads around all of this information, but those who haven't dabbled in those worlds may at first be overwhelmed and confused about how to best approach these tasks. Given the improvised nature of each performance's narrative, which again is based entirely on what the audience decides to do, missteps can have fairly costly ramifications. This cycle of receiving requests, planning offerings, potions, and rituals repeats three times across the course of Come Bargain, giving the audience time to get their head around the show's intricacies. By the third and final request of the evening, our audience had seemingly mastered their respective roles, which allowed us to temporarily communicate with the recently deceased Angela, the elderly woman whose initial request we had not chosen at the beginning of the evening. Helping her children get some much-needed closure was a fittingly poignant ending to the show, and it showed that helping the individuals within a community can be just as meaningful as helping the collective. Overall, the tone of Come Bargain balances being both ominous and haunting, yet inviting. CN Lester and Amy Kearsly's operatic, improvised performances throughout the show, which take the form of both individual pieces to smaller groups and as a duo during the invocations, go a long way to creating this atmosphere. Often, the pair's ethereal hums will echo throughout the space, acting as a backing for the snarls and growls coming from the Uncanny Thing (Leo Doulton), which remains bound within a circle at the far end of the space for the show's duration. Come Worship Our Uncanny King (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton The second show in the Uncanny Things Trilogy, Come Worship Our Uncanny King, is much lighter fare. With the Uncanny King sitting atop a throne in the centre of the space, the community is there to give praise and thanks to the supernatural ruler. There's no justice being sought, no scheming and underhand tricks to be wary of, and no duty to do right by anyone other than the King. We have found ourselves in their court, and we are there to entertain them. Structurally, the show shares a lot of similarities with Come Bargain, though the stakes are a lot lower and the mechanics are simpler. The audience once again splits off into smaller groups to work on various activities against the clock, which are later presented to the Uncanny King. Those into arts and crafts will naturally be drawn to creating offerings with Adorer (CN Lester), while elsewhere in the space, the community will also work on creating short processionals such as toasts, hymns, and performances with The Master of Processionals (Hester Dart) that highlight the best qualities of the Uncanny King. Additionally, debates on a selection of topics decided by the King give the community further chances to pander to the King's ego, with them making the final ruling on whose argument was the strongest. Come Worship Our Uncanny King (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Come Worship Our Uncanny King is billed as a comedic farce, which is fitting. With much less of a focus on trying to help the wider community of Southwark, the cast has much more room to play with the audience's suggestions and build upon their light-hearted creations. During our visit, an offhand comment about us having a pair of cats at home quickly spiralled into an extended dialogue throughout the court about their virtues, which culminated in an improvised choir of operatic meows from CN Lester and Hester Dart. Given so much of the show's content is decided by the audience's choices, cats became a running theme throughout the rest of the performance, with both audiences and cast harking back to these moments throughout the evening. Later in the show, following a suggestion from the King that they'd like to see us create a competition in their honour, a wordplay-based game was presented to the court, with all of the participants, including a wordless Silent (Sarah Griffin), who took part with gestures instead of words, slowly bowing out to let the King win. It was a sycophantic decision from the audience to throw the game in the King's favour, but it was rewarded handsomely with boons, which allowed the King's court to have their wishes and desires granted. Come Worship Our Uncanny King (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Rounding off the trilogy, Come Murder An Uncanny Thing sees the community return to seeking justice for the people of Southwark. With The Vigilante (Amy Kearsley) having bound an injured Uncanny Thing, the group must decide what to do with the dangerous being now in their control. From the outset, it's made clear that the Uncanny Thing has caused great pain to the people of the borough, with direct mention of the events that unfolded in Come Bargain, and the show's central tension is formed around the question of whether we should be kind or cruel to it. In this show, the audience holds the greatest amount of power over the Uncanny Thing, and without the oversight of council officials, have much more freedom to decide how best to use its powers without any of the red tape present in Come Bargain. Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton For those looking to enact vigilante justice, crafting remedies will punish the Uncanny Thing. Bound to enact what we as an audience wish it to, there is again total freedom for visitors to shape the narrative of the show. Suggestions that it should remove its own teeth or feel the pain it's inflicted on others as retribution were offered up by the audience during our visit. Those instead looking to instead create positive outcomes from the Uncanny Things bounding can craft uses for the Uncanny Thing to enact with The Lawful (Hester Dart), such as reducing the pain of those in the local hospital or providing shelter to the area's homeless population. All of these remedies and uses come at a price, however. The Uncanny Thing will assign a value to each request based on how much of its finite power it will take to enact. As an audience, we don't know exactly how much power it has to give before destroying itself, so all of our choices remain hypothetical in the first half of the show, with a final decision needed after the show's interval. Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton That central tension of Come Murder - whether to use the Uncanny Thing's power to better the world around us or use it to punish itself - comes to a head in the second half of the show. All of our propositions must be debated and weighed up against one another. The Uncanny Thing will decide the order in which it enacts the remedies and uses, so not everything we demand of it may be possible before it dies. Conflicts of opinion between the audience are a given, with them trying to balance helping the community with punishing the Uncanny Thing for what it's done. There are conflicting ideas from the cast also, with The Vigilante and The Lawful clashing on what the best course of action is, acting like an angel and demon on the shoulder of each audience member. We'd wager most audiences will ultimately want to mine the Uncanny Thing for as much as they can, be it positive or negative, without showing the supernatural being mercy, so the question becomes how much can be achieved before its death. Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Having now spent roughly 7 hours inside the wyrd world of The Uncanny Things Trilogy, the thing that's really stuck with us is how much freedom each show affords its audience. When we interviewed Virtually Opera's Leo Doulton last month, he referenced Parabolic Theatre's 2019/2022 show Crisis, What Crisis? as a key influence that informed the creation of this work, and that is certainly present throughout each part of the trilogy. It's rare that a creator is willing to hand over total control of a show to the audience, let alone three shows. By offering the audience that freedom, it allows them to forge their own path and take real ownership of what unfolds. It's a testament to the show's cast and crew that each show doesn't spin off into chaos, unless, of course, that's what the audience decides they want to do... ★★★★ The Uncanny Things Trilogy runs until 30th March 2025 at COLAB Tower near London Bridge. Standard tickets for each show are priced at £45, with tickets for all three shows available as a bundle for £105. For more info and to book tickets, visit designmynight.com Read more reviews of immersive experiences like The Uncanny Things Trilogy here .

Four and a half years in the making, wunderkind producers Sleepwalk Immersive debut an outstanding adaptation of The Bacchae that shows off only a fraction of their full potential. This review is from the 2023 run of Bacchanalia at Crypt in Bethnal Green. Click here to read our 2025 review of the show at Hoxton Hall. Photo: Sleepwalk Immersive Initially conceived as a one-man show designed for a single audience member, the development of Bacchanalia has spanned a period of four and a half years. Expanding and growing with each new iteration, it took form last year in a series of R&D performances in Central London. Off the back of those shows, Bacchanalia has now taken over Crypt in Bethnal Green for a two-week, sold-out run. Based on The Bacchae by Euripides, Bacchanalia tells the story of the Greek god Dionysus as they seek revenge on the family members who have denied their divinity. It's an intense and intimate immersive production, welcoming just 40 audience members per performance. Photos: Ivy Corbin ( @ivy_corbs ) Set in 1960's Thebes, Bacchanalia ties the Greek tragedies' themes of rebellion and societal resistance to change to the moral panic and hysteria that surrounded hippie counter-culture that came to define the era. Bridging the gap between these ancient narratives and more contemporary events, it's a thoughtful and innovative approach to storytelling that pays off in spades. With a cast made up of Jordan Ajadi, Ruth Howard, Christian Loveless, Fionn Cox-Davies, Peter Broughton, Fania Grigoriou and Maya McQueen , it's a show full of exceptionally talented performers. The quality of this cast is a testament to the ambition of Sleepwalk Immersive, who have produced a show that stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the best immersive stagings London has seen in recent memory. Photo: Ivy Corbin ( @ivy_corbs ) Peter Broughton's portrayal of Dionysus - the God of wine and pleasure - is equal parts cult leader and dazzling showman, carrying themselves with all the bravado and self-assuredness of a God returning to claim what is theirs. While their push and pull with Christian Loveless' buttoned-up Mayor Pentheus is the driving force for the story as the two vie for control of Thebes, ultimately it's a futile effort for Pentheus - who all but lost the war the moment their cousin Dionysus arrived. Photos: Ivy Corbin ( @ivy_corbs ) Broughton spends much of the show flanked by Jordan Ajadi and Ruth Howard - the chorus of Bacchae who hang on Dionysus' every word. With their pedigree as performers well established, it's no surprise that Ruth Howard's work as Movement Director is excellent, with their choreography and movement on display throughout the show a great reflection of the uninhibited, free-spirited feel of 1960's counter-culture. Rounding off the cast are Fania Grigoriou as Agave and Fionn Cox-Davies as Tiresias, who both portray their roles with a weight worthy of the source material. Notably, Grigoriou's portrayal of Agave undergoes a poignant transformation throughout the show, reaching a powerful climax as she descends into madness, convinced that Pentheus is a lion whom she then fiercely attacks. Photo: Ivy Corbin ( @ivy_corbs ) Inevitably, Bacchanalia is going to be compared to Punchdrunk's work. With a cast made up largely of the immersive juggernauts alumni, and with a Greek tragedy as the source material it's an easy leap to make. The show wears its influence on its sleeves - anyone who experienced The Burnt City will be able to draw numerous parallels between the style of Punchdrunk's work and Bacchanalia. From the choreographed dance sequences to the strategic lighting cues and use of music, Sleepwalk's show feels like a concentrated embodiment of everything people have come to love about Punchdrunk's work. Photo: Ivy Corbin ( @ivy_corbs ) It'd be dismissive to say that this is little more than imitation though - Bacchanalia builds upon the inspiration taken from Punchdrunk and combines it with a lot of the most compelling elements of the immersive medium. Upon entering guests are offered outfits, as well as food and drink. Scattered throughout the space are dozens of documents and photos - including references to other immersive shows and mementos from audience members who backed the show on Kickstarter. All of this not only builds out the world further, helping the walls of the venue fade away, but demonstrates Sleepwalk Immersive's commitment to prioritising the audience's experience in every aspect of the show's creation. There are also moments of real humour throughout - including the use of a puppet bearing a striking resemblance to Grigoriou that was one of the funniest and most unexpected moments we can recall having seen in an immersive production. Photo: Ivy Corbin ( @ivy_corbs ) Artistic Director Sebastian Huang commented during our recent interview that this version of the show is only around 1/4 of what Sleepwalk has already envisioned and written for Bacchanalia. Given the success and response to this short run, it will no doubt return in the future at a grander scale. In its current form, this is one of the best new immersive shows of the year, so those yet to visit Thebes can rest assured that when the show does return, it'll be a sight to behold. Sleepwalk Immersive has captured lightning in a bottle with Bacchanalia. The fact that this version of the show is only a fraction of their overall ambition for the story is a marvel, and we can't wait to see where it goes from here. ★★★★ ½ Bacchanalia runs at Crypt in Bethnal Green until Saturday 25th November 2023. You can stay up to date with Sleepwalk Immersive via their mailing list or Instagram .