Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic This July, innovative creators of immersive experiences, DARKFIELD, are taking their most critically acclaimed shipping container-based experience, FLIGHT, to Galway International Arts Festival. Having toured extensively throughout the UK, North America, Asia, and Australia, this marks the company’s premiere in Ireland and Europe. DARKFIELD are world-renowned for their unique combination of cutting-edge 360 degree binaural sound, sensory effects and complete darkness to create immersive experiences, situating participants at the centre of intense, evolving narratives. One of DARKFIELD’s most popular and acclaimed immersive experiences, FLIGHT, will premiere at the Galway International Arts Festival from 13th to 26th July at the heart of the festival in Festival Garden, Eyre Square. Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic In a shipping container with an interior that resembles an Airbus 320 economy cabin, FLIGHT explores the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, taking audience members through two worlds, two realities and two possible outcomes to their journey. There are many worlds in which this plane lands safely. Since premiering in Edinburgh in 2018, FLIGHT has toured extensively, both across the UK and internationally, including extensive recent residencies at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Manchester’s Aviva Studios, and will return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. DARKFIELD Artistic Directors, David Rosenberg and Glen Neath, commented: We’ve wanted to bring one of our containers to Ireland for a long time so we’re absolutely thrilled to be coming to Galway International Arts Festival with FLIGHT. Having presented our work across the world, we know how much audiences enjoy the worlds we create, so we’re very excited to welcome Irish audiences to experience FLIGHT. DARKFIELD produces innovative immersive 360-degree audio experiences at the forefront of technology and theatre. Working in complete darkness, DARKFIELD utilises striking sets, binaural sound and sensory effects to place each participant at the centre of intense, evolving narratives. The design of the shows is striking, rich, innovative and detailed: strange worlds that unfold and steal you away from reality. DARKFIELD is known for touring theatrical shows within custom-built shipping containers, and also for creating in-venue productions, installations and digital works that tour theatres, festivals and cultural spaces worldwide. FLIGHT runs at Galway's Eyre Square from 13th to 23rd July 2026. Tickets are priced from €15.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit giaf.ie

Peter Broughton's adaptation of Frankenstein, which plays out for an audience of one each performance, is one of this year's most exciting new immersive productions. Image: Creature/Peter Broughton This review contains descriptions of some events within Creature. Written and directed by Peter Broughton (best known for playing Dionysus in the original Crypt and Hoxton Hall runs of Sleepwalk's Bacchanalia), Creature is an intimate, immersive production for a single audience member. It blends puppetry, binaural audio and immersive performance to create an experience that feels equal parts immersive show and theme park dark ride. Inspired by Mary Shelley's 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein, this 20-minute-long show places its sole audience member into the role of Victor Frankenstein, kidnapped on his wedding night by the vengeful creature he abandoned. Each performance's single audience member sits in a wheelchair and is pushed and pulled through the space by a masked Igor (Jessica Southwood) while wearing headphones, through which the majority of the show's dialogue and atmospheric soundtrack (created by Hanna Gardner) is delivered. Alongside the pre-recorded audio is a series of striking visual sequences that see the audience, amongst other things, thrown across the space, looking into the past, and engulfed in flames. The show's centrepiece is an arresting life-sized puppet of the creature (played by Peter Broughton), which is hellbent on exacting its revenge on Victor, and narrates the show in between menacing growls and snarls, commanding every moment of the audience's attention. In the best way possible, Creature is a hard show to categorise. While it's unequivocally a piece of immersive theatre, it refuses to fit neatly into any of the typical immersive boxes, offering very little agency, no influence over the show's narrative, and no freedom to move around the space as they wish. However, what the audience gives up in autonomy is made up for tenfold thanks to the show's meticulously timed, cinematic approach to storytelling, which is unlike anything else we've ever experienced in an immersive production. To sit down in the wheelchair is to give yourself over to becoming the focus of a terrifying, gothic-infused fever dream. Photo: Creature/Peter Broughton The show's initial run, which took place in the Boat Tunnel at COLAB Tower (a venue fast emerging as the de facto home for new immersive work in London) as part of COLAB's inaugural Invitational Theatre Festival, sold out almost instantly. While a scarcity of tickets is often the case with buzzy one-audience-member shows like Creature, this first run at COLAB Tower sold out before the show had even been officially publicised on its social media channels - likely off the back of Broughton's name and die-hard immersive fans' familiarity with their previous work on Sleepwalk's Bacchanalia. When we sat down with Peter ahead of the show's opening, they cited the work of Jim Henson as the catalyst for their lifelong love of puppetry. While what they've created in Creature is a far cry from the kinds of puppets Henson produced throughout his career and a departure from the style of puppetry audiences might recall from Bacchanalia, Broughton's passion for the form is evident long before the creature's terrifying design is fully revealed. While we're not going to divulge any specifics about the puppet (which was hand-made by Broughton with additional textile work by Audrey Rodriguez), we can share that when you're sitting in the wheelchair, it towers over you and feels like it could swallow you whole. In the rare moments where its focus isn't on you, and the creature isn't hunched over to meet you at eye level, its head comes perilously close to scraping the ceiling of the show's venue. It's a sight to behold, and when it's looking directly at you, it's incredibly unnerving. One of Creature's most interesting elements (looming, terrifying puppet aside) is how the audience's attention and field of view are managed while they're sitting in the wheelchair. Throughout the show, every movement is choreographed down to the second, with the show's cast working in tandem to manually shine torches, getting into position for upcoming scenes, and triggering smoke machines and video elements, all in time with the show's evocative pre-recorded audio. From slow creeps forward to rapid 360-degree circles around the creature as it writhes on the floor, there are very few moments where you're not being moved through the space, and at all times, your field of vision and focus are dictated by those movements and position in the space. Alongside delivering a cinematic, movie-like experience, in which the audience is always perfectly placed for the unfolding scene, the audience's ever-changing sightlines also allow the show's five-strong team to perform some really impactful sleight of hand within the space, swapping out elements of the set when your back is turned, keeping audiences on the backfoot, constantly questioning what else could be happening around them when they're not looking. Photo: Creature/Peter Broughton Pre-recorded video content, at times, plays out through TV screens and projections, offering some wider context for both the creature's actions and the show's wider world. Those who attended Sleepwalk's Bacchanalia will spot a familiar face in Elizabeth (Maya McQueen), alongside an unmasked Broughton, who makes a short cameo as a newsreader. The rest of the show's video cast is made up of Mei Mei MacLeod as a second newsreader, Charles Stagg as William and Ben Mallett as the pre-recorded version of Victor. In immersive theatre, the one-on-one has always been highly sought after. Whether it be self-contained shows like The Manikins or Undersigned, or fleeting, private moments within larger immersive worlds from the likes of Punchdrunk, their impact on those who experience them is long-lasting. Alongside making that one audience member the focus of the performer's attention and placing them at the centre of the experience, below the surface, there's a recognition that everything being performed, regardless of how complex the show is, is for the benefit of one person. It's a humbling position for an audience member to exist in, and the exchanges within these moments, however big or small, often hold more weight purely because it's just for them. Photo: Creature/Peter Broughton Within Creature, there's an extraordinary amount of effort being exerted for the benefit of that one audience member. None of the show's lighting is pre-programmed - it's all done by torchlight at the hands of the cast. None of the movement and environmental changes are mechanical - they're all done by manually. None of what they experience would exist without the show's cast (made up of Peter Broughton, Jessica Southwood, Alice Elsie Thomas, Elena Sirett and Puck) pulling off every element of the show, in the moment and in unison, just for them. To do all of that, flawlessly, for a single person's applause and appreciation may be somewhat of a thankless task, especially when the team are all masked and it's nigh-on impossible to tell who is doing what in the moment, but the collective impact of that work on the audience's experience can't be understated. As is often the case with experiences for just one audience member, the ticket price for Creature is high, costing anywhere from £90 to £100 per performance. Despite being a short piece (clocking in at a little over 20 minutes from beginning to end), it's clear that the show's price is a necessity, especially given the cast size, which is nearly twice as big as that of shows like Undersigned and The Manikins. Photo: Creature/Peter Broughton Creature is one of the most exciting new immersive productions to have opened in London this year. Much like during Sleepwalk's first run of Bacchanalia at Crypt, Creature's debut outing feels like it has the potential to go on to become a much larger experience if the stars align. While there's no way of knowing what the future holds for Creature, in its current form, it's a perfectly realised, fiercely original experience that's unlike anything else out there. If you can secure a ticket, count yourself lucky, because it's one hell of a ride. ★★★★★ [Ticket gifted in exchange for an honest review] Creature will run at COLAB Tower from 30th October to 1st November 2025. Tickets are currently sold out, but you can stay up to date on future performances via @creature.immersive on Instagram. For more reviews of immersive productions like Creature, check out our recent Immersive Reviews. Stay up to date on the latest immersive theatre news by following Immersive Rumours on Instagram.

Image: Eclipso Colosseum: The Legendary Arena is the latest immersive VR production from French producers Eclipso and Small Creative. Running alongside the hugely successful Titanic: Echos from the Past at Eclipso's permanent Camden High Street venue, the 40-minute-long experience allows guests to explore virtual recreations of Ancient Rome and the infamous Colosseum alongside Caius, a teenager who idolises the arena's fighters, and Flamma, a Syrian-born gladiator who was one of the era's most famous warriors. Upon checking in at Eclipso and being called up in small groups, there's a brief explainer on how the VR headsets work and the usual health and safety warnings you'd expect from a free-roaming VR experience (don't run, don't walk into walls, don't try and sit down on a virtual chair as it doesn't exist or you'll make a fool of yourself, etc.). Once you've settled into wearing the headset and waved goodbye to the real world, all that stands between you and Ancient Rome is a short virtual corridor. Opening virtual scenes have guests following Caius, a teenage ball of energy who dreams of one day becoming a fighter in the Colosseum. While he'd love nothing more than to enthusiastically wave his wooden sword around his family home and show off his skills all afternoon, he's soon told to head down to the local market by his mother, ushering him (and us) out the door and onto the streets of Rome after showing us the city's terracotta-washed skyline from their balcony. Within the market, there's the opportunity to eavesdrop on conversations between traders and local residents, pick up certain items from the stalls (which you can quickly discard and throw to the floor like a stroppy toddler), and soak in the atmosphere. Shortly after, standing in front of the Colosseum, Caius explains the story behind the Colossus of Nero, a 30-metre-tall bronze statue that sat outside the arena. While it towers over you on the ground, the rising platforms guests are on allow them to take in the finer details as they float higher and higher into the air above the city. Image: Eclipso Once inside the Colosseum, Caius explains the seating hierarchy, with politicians and wealthy Romans seated on the lower levels closer to the action, and the common folk restricted to the upper levels. It's in this scene that the scale of what's been produced for Colosseum becomes clear. With a crowd of 80,000 spectators, it's an awe-inspiring view from the upper levels, with people as far as the eye can see, and it offers the kind of spectacle only possible with VR. As great a view as it is, Caius isn't content with being relegated to such a distant view of his idol and ushers guests down a secret passage, saying he knows a shortcut to a better view. Emerging inside a hypogeum beneath the arena, which is home to imprisoned fighters, guests are soon introduced to Flamma, who's preparing for his upcoming fight. Once on the arena floor alongside Flamma, with crowds cheering him on, it's clear why he turned down freedom four times over his lifetime – the man was built for fighting and was committed to providing a good show for them, regardless of the cost. From here, there are several hugely impressive scenes on the arena floor depicting Flamma fighting opponents, from small one-on-one skirmishes to venationes (in which the fighters are pitted against everything from elephants to leopards) and full-blown naval battle recreations in a flooded arena aboard opposing ships. While guests never have to defend themselves and engage in these battles, for certain scenes, they'll find themselves equipped with swords and shields, inviting them to engage in mock combat with other attendees by waving their hands. Despite the countless litres of blood spilt within the real-life Colosseum, Eclipso's VR experience is family-friendly and wisely doesn't show any of the gory details crowds at the time were hungry for. Vanquished fighters evaporate in a cloud of gold dust as they fall to the floor, and while some of the fighting is highly choreographed, for better or worse, there's nothing within them that would invite you to really contemplate the giant loss of life that took place where you're standing. Rounding off the experience, with the fighting behind us in the training camp, Caius emerges and finally is able to meet his idol, Flamma, face-to-face. While Caius is keen to share that he wants to grow up and be just like Flamma, the Syrian gladiator gives him pause, explaining that being there for those who love him and not risking his life for the bloodthirsty crowd is just as noble a pursuit. Image: Eclipso While there is plenty of really interesting and engaging educational content on display throughout Colosseum, the free-roam setup within each scene does allow guests to step back from that and treat it as a virtual playground if they so wish. At one point, temptation got the better of us, and our inner arsonist came out when a flaming torch spawned into our hand, leading us to (unsuccessfully) try and light our virtual companions on fire, and we spent a fun couple of minutes trying to build up the courage to walk off the edge of numerous high platforms without feeling like we were going to fall to our death. With impressive technology, a huge scale, and some really engaging content, Colosseum: The Legendary Arena is up there with some of the best VR we've ever experienced. Striking a balance between entertainment and education, it's a wonderful experience for families, those interested in Ancient Rome, and those keen to try out VR for the first time and discover what all the fuss is about. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Colosseum: The Legendary Arena runs at Eclipso on Camden High Street daily. Tickets are priced from £23.00 per person and can be booked via feverup.com

Image: DARKFIELD Following their residency at Shoreditch Town Hall earlier this year, DARKFIELD returns to London with a bumper line-up of four shipping container shows - ARCADE, FLIGHT, COMA and EULOGY. Taking over a corner of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park across October and early November, this collection of 360-degree sound experiences delivered through headphones in the pitch black invites guests to embrace the darkness and explore dream-like worlds that examine everything from free will to quantum mechanics. FLIGHT Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic Set within a cross-section of a commercial aeroplane cabin, complete with a laminated safety card, working seatbelts, tray tables and overhead luggage compartments, FLIGHT invites audiences to experience two parallel realities at once. Taking inspiration from the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment (in which an animal inside a closed box is both dead and alive until observed), it places the audience into the role of the metaphorical cat, as both their death and survival play out in parallel, unobserved by everyone outside of the plane. Depending on your resolve, the above description is either going to be appealing or a terrifying proposition – and out of all the shows DARKFIELD has on offer during this London residency, FLIGHT is easily the most intense, helped in large part by having the most impactful motion effects. There's a persistent rumble of engines during take-off; moments of turbulence cause the cabin to jolt around, and of course, as the reality in which audiences don't survive plays out, the intensity of these effects ramps up considerably. While the show takes place in complete darkness, fleeting flashes of light through the aeroplane's windows help sell the illusion of flight even further, illuminating both the cabin and its seated passengers. FLIGHT's use of binaural audio is perhaps the strongest of this residency's four shows, as the moments in which the chaos and carnage of the plane's destruction envelop its captive audience are rendered in terrifyingly realistic detail, with the sound of the fuselage ripping apart and the cabin being pummelled by the outside air becoming almost deafening. Even during FLIGHT's calmer moments, there's still plenty to raise the heart rate, including a chorus of crying babies (arguably worse than death), problematic passengers, and some pretty terse flight attendants whispering in your ear - all delivered through the show's excellent binaural soundscape. While the odds of being in a real-life plane crash are incredibly low, FLIGHT is a vivid reminder that every time we fly, we're placing our trust in people and things beyond our control. There's very little we can do to ensure our safety, besides making sure our tray tables are in their upright position and obeying the fasten seatbelt sign. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] COMA Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic COMA, which first premiered in 2019, invites guests to enter a collective dream as part of a collective medical experiment. Lying in a whitewashed bunk bed, barely big enough to stretch out in, each participant is prompted to ingest a white pill laid out by their bed and slip away into a state of unconsciousness. A male voice slowly counts down from 10 and asks us to focus on remembering the details of the space, as the lights fade and total darkness takes over. Easily the most claustrophobic of DARKFIELD's offerings, thanks to the tight sleeping arrangements, COMA takes great delight in toying with its audience, keeping them on edge throughout. Through headphones, the voice of the Doctor - which acts as the driving force throughout the experiences - constantly moves around the space. At first, it appears they're in the far corners of the room before moments later appearing alongside you, seemingly bending down to whisper into your ear. In the background, hushed conversations from the other patients and staff members imply there's movement happening throughout the space, despite everyone being confined to their bunks. Nurses open and close curtains around you, offering little in the way of privacy and protection against whatever forces are at play within the facility. Alongside mention of people's perfumes, or the broken coffee machine, come matching smells, pumped directly into the container, and a small sliding shutter beside your head seemingly opens and closes at regular intervals, as if you're being observed up close. While COMA encourages participants to enter into a meditative state, there's so much going on around you; you're never able to truly relax into your surroundings, and if anything, you're more on edge than when you first entered. By the show's climax, it's hard to tell if what you're experiencing has been curated as part of the show or was a figment of your imagination, as you lie immobilised. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] EULOGY Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic Sitting upon a single pillow inside individual laundry roll cages, EULOGY has audience members exploring the endless corridors and rooms of a labyrinthine hotel. As always in a DARKFIELD show, they're in total darkness and wearing headphones, but the show's opening moments offer up a mechanic not present in either COMA or FLIGHT - the ability to respond to questions with simple answers, picked up through a microphone on each audience member's headphones. Accompanying each audience member on their audio-based journey is their assigned Companion, who both 'moves' them through the space and offers reassurances and guidance throughout (all delivered through whispers). In typical DARKFIELD fashion, exactly what's going on within the hotel is never made explicitly clear. All of the hotel's companions appear to be racing each other to get to the hotel's deeper levels as quickly as possible, but exactly what's required and involved remains elusive throughout. Try as you might to wrap your head around what's going on, you're always on the back foot, even though you're meant to be in control of your journey. On a technical level, EULOGY does an incredible job of immersing you in the show's imaginary world. As you descend deeper and deeper into the subterranean hotel, your laundry cage gently vibrates, and the sound of lift doors opening is accompanied by a gust of air, signifying your arrival in another part of the hotel. While comments from your companion and other hotel staff about how the air gets thicker the deeper you go, thankfully, aren't recreated, the cumulative effect of the binaural audio and pre-recorded performances certainly makes it feel like it is. The mind's a crazy thing... ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] ARCADE Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic The latest DARKFIELD production, ARCADE, rounds off their London residency. We reviewed ARCADE earlier in the year during their Shoreditch Town Hall takeover. Read an extract below, with our full review linked underneath. "Taking control of Milk, an amnesic avatar dropped into the middle of an ongoing war between the North Block and South Block, guests respond to questions and prompts by pressing the single button on the panel of their individual arcade machine to answer 'Yes', with no response signalling 'No'. In addition, there's a coin slot and return tray to facilitate 'paying' for items such as guns and access to areas that are otherwise off-limits. They're all pretty limited ways of interacting with the story as it develops, but for something so basic, the paths it leads you down are branching and varied. Within ARCADE, these 'Yes' or 'No' decisions can have drastic consequences. A wrong answer can result in your avatar being killed at a moment's notice (something we found out less than a minute into our playthrough), and the trajectory of your story can veer off in a wildly different direction from what other guests are experiencing without you even realising how it happened. Violence is near enough guaranteed within the world of ARCADE, regardless of whether you try to be a pacifist or mercenary, and with every bullet fired comes some practical effects built into the arcade machine that remove the barrier between what you hear and what you feel. There's a tension and anxiety built into the show's sound design that only amplifies as you get deeper into the experience, and every decision begins to carry more weight." ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] DARKFIELD's COMA, FLIGHT, EULOGY and ARCADE are at Mandeville Place in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park until 2nd November 2025. Tickets for each experience are priced from £13.50 per person, with discounts available if booking multiple shows at once. To find out more and book tickets, visit darkfield.org/london2025

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic Sitting upon a single pillow inside individual laundry roll cages, EULOGY has audience members exploring the endless corridors and rooms of a labyrinthine hotel. As always in a DARKFIELD show, they're in total darkness and wearing headphones, but the show's opening moments offer up a mechanic not present in either COMA or FLIGHT - the ability to respond to questions with simple answers, picked up through a microphone on each audience member's headphones. Accompanying each audience member on their audio-based journey is their assigned Companion, who both 'moves' them through the space and offers reassurances and guidance throughout (all delivered through whispers). In typical DARKFIELD fashion, exactly what's going on within the hotel is never made explicitly clear. All of the hotel's companions appear to be racing each other to get to the hotel's deeper levels as quickly as possible, but exactly what's required and involved remains elusive throughout. Try as you might to wrap your head around what's going on, you're always on the back foot, even though you're meant to be in control of your journey. Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic On a technical level, EULOGY does an incredible job of immersing you in the show's imaginary world. As you descend deeper and deeper into the subterranean hotel, your laundry cage gently vibrates, and the sound of lift doors opening is accompanied by a gust of air, signifying your arrival in another part of the hotel. While comments from your companion and other hotel staff about how the air gets thicker the deeper you go, thankfully, aren't recreated, the cumulative effect of the binaural audio and pre-recorded performances certainly makes it feel like it is. The mind's a crazy thing... ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] This review of EULOGY is from DARKFIELD's London residency at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in October 2025. For more information on DARKFIELD and their upcoming shows, visit darkfield.org

London's best open-world immersive experience returns with its fourth annual Halloween season, bringing with it another excellent batch of story trails for guests to sink their fangs into. Photo: Alistar Veryard Despite still being September, in the town of Phantom Peak, spooky season is here. Returning for its fourth year, Phantom Peak's annual Halloween celebration brings with it eleven new trails for guests to work through, an updated cocktail trail, and the latest developments in its ongoing story. Billed as more spooky than scary, this latest instalment of the ongoing, family-friendly immersive open-world experience has become a mainstay in London's immersive calendar in recent years, standing tall as a shining example of why London is regarded as the best city in the world for immersive experiences. Regular visitors to the mining town will be familiar with the show's tried-and-tested formula, which has been continually tweaked and refined with each passing season. Four times a year, there's a town-wide retheme, accompanied by a fresh batch of story trails. Throughout these trails, guests explore the 30,000 sq ft town, interact with Phantom Peak's 15+ residents, engage with the numerous pieces of off-kilter tech, and solve puzzles over the show's 4-hour duration. While the focus of each storyline differs wildly from trail to trail, they're all packed full of humour and lead you down a rabbit hole far more bizarre, irreverent and offbeat than the starting point ever suggested. Photo: Alistair Veryard For those keen to collect all of this season's individual trail cards, which are given to guests upon completion of each storyline, it'll take at least 3 visits. That's without giving yourself time to sink your fangs into the various other distractions on offer around town, which include a trio of carnival games, fully functional in-world arcade machines, communal competitions, the ever-popular sport of Platyhooks, and, of course, themed food and drink options, which this season include Halloway's Coffin Deluxe burger (complete with charcoal brioche bun!) and cocktails such as Harvest Plasma and Copper Vein. Picking up the ongoing storyline from Phantom Peak's summer season, this year's Hallowed Peak finds the town in lockdown after former Mayor, Dr Joy S. Furbish, who was long presumed dead, was confirmed to be alive and hiding somewhere in the area. True to form, Phantom Peak's creative team subverted Furbish's long-teased return last season by having the sausage-fingered fugitive appear in puppet form, thanks to a process developed by JONACO (the town's all-encompassing corporate presence) called puppetizing, which turns people from flesh to felt. With the town's tourist population all deputised as honorary JIA agents during the Opening Ceremony, this season of Phantom Peak sees Furbish topping the JIA's Most Wanted List, alongside the festive demigod Father Platmas, Philip from JONACO Marketing and, inexplicably, the real-life founder of Phantom Peak's fan Discord server (the specifics of their crimes are unknown, but no doubt severe). Photo: Alistair Veryard With each season of Phantom Peak delivering 10+ hours of new content (the 11 main trails on offer each take close to an hour to complete), this review is only scratching the surface of everything on offer, but from the half a dozen trails we've finished so far, it's fair to say that they're as varied as ever, and the high benchmark set by previous seasons' offerings has once again been cleared. As ever, Phantom Peak's storylines continue to engage with and lampoon popular culture. Whether they're taking shots at MrBeast's ever-growing empire or crypto pyramid schemes, these send-ups offer an extra layer of enjoyment to the character-driven storylines that fuel the Phantom Peak experience. Long-time visitors to Phantom Peak will also find numerous references to previous seasons throughout, which only deepen the show's rich lore further. Year-round, many of Phantom Peak's trails have spooky, supernatural elements, and the townsfolk are no strangers to battling with demons and ghosts. For Hallowed Peak, it's dialled up to an extreme, with mummies, ghouls, wolfmen, and Dracula all featuring to various degrees. Photo: Alistair Veryard 'The Axiomatic Zone', which wonderfully parodies The Twilight Zone, is one of this season's standout trails. In it, fictional actor Beardy Ham finds themself helpless against a Rod Serling-esque host (played pitch-perfectly by Luke Booys, via pre-recorded Jonavision videos), who's previously abducted dozens of melodramatic, jobbing actors and has now set their sights on one of the town's most theatrical residents. Trails like this, which fully embrace spoofing pre-existing properties, have proven to be some of the show's most popular in past seasons, and Phantom Peak's writing team (made up of Nick Moran, Danny Romeo and Tibet Boyer) have never shied away from leaning into the elements that have previously resonated the most with audiences, taking their feedback on board. Woven into the DNA of Phantom Peak is a real commitment to ensuring the guest experience is as good as it can possibly be, and they're in the unique position of being able to deploy tweaks and larger changes at a far quicker pace than many other immersive shows can, thanks to the show's seasonal structure. Photos: Alistair Veryard Elsewhere in town, after returning to Phantom Peak last season following a 2-year absence, bar owner-turned-lawyer Giffard (Stella Saltibus) continues to struggle with keeping their fugitive father, Furbish, out of trouble. Despite the JIA actively searching for Furbish, in 'Flight Of The Furbish', they've been running their mouth at the bar, telling everyone their true identity and revealing that Giffard is their child. Guests looking to play both sides and undermine the JIA puppet hunt will find themselves tasked with securing and destroying the only physical copy of the incriminating CCTV footage and finding a way for Furbish to escape town without being captured. The ongoing power struggle between Jonas and Furbish has driven much of Phantom Peak's ongoing storyline over the last three years, and to now have a physical representation of Furbish within the town's walls is a sure-fire sign that in the not-too-distant future, this chapter of Phantom Peak's story will reach its conclusion with The Great Undoing. Photos: Alistair Veryard Throughout Phantom Peak's history, its autumn and summer seasons have always had the luxury of running for several months before being cycled out. In stark contrast, Hallowed Peak often feels like an apparition – vanishing almost as soon as it appears. There are just six short weeks left to dive into their annual Halloween offering and discover everything it has to offer before Father Platmas ushers in Wintermas to see out the calendar year. While the show's constant seasonal turnover makes it true for every season of Phantom Peak, to see this much care and love go into crafting an experience that's only available for a relatively short time before being removed and replaced is nothing short of miraculous. It's an experience that has continuously outdone itself with each passing season, and with this year's edition of Hallowed Peak, Phantom Peak is the best it's ever been. Until the next season opens anyway... ★★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Phantom Peak's Hallowed Peak runs until 9th November 2025 in Canada Water. To find out more and to book tickets, visit phantompeak.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Phantom Peak's Hallowed Peak, check out our recent Reviews.

Secret Cinema's latest staging of Grease is an all-singing, all-dancing spectacle, and a radical departure from the usual Secret Cinema format. Photo: Luke Dyson After a nearly three-year-long absence, Secret Cinema returns to London with a new large-scale production, recreating Rydell High for an all-singing, all-dancing version of the 70's classic, Grease. The film is well-trodden ground for Secret Cinema, who have adapted it twice before, but this 2025 production, which takes over Evolution in Battersea Park for a 6-week run, is a radical departure from the company's previous stagings, and a very different kind of experience from what the company are best-known for. It's been a quiet couple of years for Secret Cinema. Following their original, family-focused festive show Wishmas, which was staged at The Vaults in Waterloo in late 2023, Secret Cinema appeared to be lying low. There was radio silence on their social media, no new productions, and the only news to come from the company focused on Studio Secret Cinema, a new arm of the business which produces brand activations. According to Secret Cinema's Matt Costain, who serves as Creative Director for Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical, this silence was for good reason. Throughout 2024 and early 2025, the company spent a considerable amount of time trying to determine what its place within London's rapidly changing immersive scene is, and looking at how to continue producing the kind of large-scale shows they’re known for, but more sustainably. The result of that soul-searching is the debut of a new format for the company, described internally as the 'one-world model'. The dozens of individual rooms and secret spaces most people have come to expect in Secret Cinema shows have been replaced with a large, open venue that is entirely accessible to every visitor. Alongside this, the structure of the experience has also been reworked from the ground up... Photo: Luke Dyson Long-time Secret Cinema fans will be familiar with the formula used in past productions. Audience were free to explore elaborate sets, interact with a large cast and witness recreations of key moments from the show's source material for several hours, before a grand finale and a seated screening of the film that the cast would perform alongside. For Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical, these two distinct halves have been combined, with cast interactions happening alongside the screening, which is now the focus on the experience. The experience begins with the audience gathering in the outdoor fairground. Alongside carnival games, bars, food vendors and a Ferris wheel, there's a full-size funhouse. Towering over the space is a huge screen that plays a series of archival movie clips and in-world announcements. With doors opening 90 minutes before the screening begins, there's plenty of time afforded to guests to eat, drink and explore, but beyond a handful of roaming characters welcoming the audience to their first day at Rydell High, there's no meaningful interaction with the cast on offer and no recognisable faces from the film. Photo: Luke Dyson After the opening scene of Grease plays on the outdoor screen, the audience is ushered inside, where the scope of the show's new format is revealed. On two sides of the space, there's VIP seating split between a tiered drive-in, complete with dozens of vintage car bonnets, and a recreation of Frosty's Palace. In the centre sits a huge raised stage, where much of the action takes place, alongside a recreation of the Rydell Autoshop, the National Bandstand stage, cafeteria tables and sports bleachers. Regardless of where the audience is within the cavernous space, there are good sightlines to all of the action, but guests are encouraged to roam and follow the cast as they perform in all four corners of the venue. As the film plays out on a number of screens hanging from the ceiling, there's a black and white live feed of the on-stage action also shown, allowing audiences to see the smaller details in the cast's performances, especially during the musical numbers, which are all performed with live vocals. All of the big moments from Grease are faithfully recreated, including a showstopping performance of 'Greased Lightnin' on the centre stage that sees a red Ford De Luxe descend from the ceiling, and Danny (Liam Morris) suspended above the stage, flexing his muscles to huge cheers. The show's rendition of 'Summer Nights' sees the Pink Ladies and T-Birds in opposing corners, duetting back and forth from the bleachers and cafeteria table, and 'Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee' sees a huge four-poster bed move around the venue as Rizzo (Lucy Penrose) pokes fun at Sandy (Stephanie Costi). Jennifer Weber's choreography builds upon the film's original dance routines, adding a modern touch to these iconic scenes, and all of the show's numbers are wonderfully staged. It's a notable step up from the staging in the Birmingham adaptation of Grease back in 2023, and it far exceeded our expectations going in. Photo: Danny Kaan In terms of interaction, there are plenty of opportunities for the audience to get involved if they want to. Multiple scenes see members of the audience being pulled up on stage, including the National Dance Off and the Pink Ladies' sleepover, where guests can watch the scene on stage alongside the cast, surrounded by pillows and blankets. A Rydell High choir is quickly formed to sing on stage, and select audience members are picked out of the crowd to become silver-roller-wearing angels during 'Beauty School Dropout'. Alongside this, there are passing interactions with the cast as they move around the venue, including, in our case, a brief chat about Danny and Sandy's relationship with Principal McGee (Colleen Daley). Most of these opportunities are open to all, regardless of ticket type, but those with 'VIP Immersive' tickets are also treated to a pre-show experience where they're taught some of the show's dance routines alongside the cast, giving them added confidence for their moments in the spotlight. Photo: Danny Kaan As a first outing for this new format, there are a couple of things that could be tightened up, but on the whole, it's a massively successful change in direction for both the company and their future productions. With Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical, Secret Cinema have delivered an engaging and confident communal experience for audiences that also happens to be one of London's best nights out this summer, and firmly re-established itself as one of the city's best immersive producers. It's good to have them back. ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical runs in Battersea Park until 7th September 2025. Tickets are priced from £49.00 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit greasetheimmersivemoviemusical.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Secret Cinema's Grease, check out our recent Reviews.

Deep in the Sussex countryside for three weekends a year, the Kingdom of Loxwood appears, ready to welcome guests into its hugely engaging immersive world. Photo: The Loxwood Joust The Loxwood Joust is an immersive medieval festival that runs in Loxwood Meadow, West Sussex, across several weekends each August. Founded in 2012 by Danny and Maurice Bacon, Loxwood Joust features live jousting tournaments, closer-quarters combat, living history exhibits and an ongoing storyline that spans multiple years, all of which form an experience that invites guests to immerse themselves in a world full of 'adventure, magic and captivating stories'. In recent years, Loxwood Joust has seen an increased focus placed on adding more immersive elements, including more developed character interactions and the introduction and evolution of story quests under the artistic direction of Paul Flannery, who has also worked on Phantom Peak and LaplandUK. The experience's overarching story has centred in recent years on Queen Helena, whose accession to the throne has been hard-won. In 2023, after losing an election to the aptly named Lord Villain, she was banished to the woods and left to plot her revenge. The following year, after returning to Loxwood and beating the then-ruler in competition, her coronation ushered in a new era for the Kingdom. Now, in the latest chapter of the story, an ancient law threatens her claim to the throne, requiring her to marry a suitable suitor before the final joust of the summer. Spread across several meadows and woodland areas, The Loxwood Joust is a full-day experience, running from 10am to 6pm, but it includes far more activities and shows than one could complete in a single day. During our visit, we only scratched the surface of everything on offer at Loxwood and could have easily spent an entire weekend exploring the Kingdom and interacting with its population, which is now possible thanks to the addition of on-site camping. Photo: The Loxwood Joust The southern half of the site, which is made up of meadowland, largely revolves around the arena. While it hosts two jousts each day, it is also the setting for the falconry display, the infamous Meat Grinder contest, and this year, the highly anticipated Royal Wedding. Across both scheduled jousts, the Loxwood Boars battle it out against the Guildford Guillemots and the Horsham Hornets in a tournament that draws in most of the site's visitors as spectators. There are factions of supporters for each team scattered around the edges of the arena, which stoke the flames of competition, but it's a hugely enjoyable spectacle even without allegiances. Lances shatter into splinters upon impact, riders fall from their horses, and a healthy dose of goading from the Guillemots and Hornets casts the Boars' opponents in the role of pantomime villains, eliciting boos from the crowd at regular intervals. Come mid-afternoon, many of the other activities happening around the site pause when the headline event, The Queen's Tournament, begins. Once the second jousting competition, which features the same level of shattered lances and booing, concludes, the focus shifts to the Meat Grinder, a 22-person free-for-all armoured fight with weapons and shields, where the last man standing wins. The finale of The Queen's Tournament is the Royal Wedding, which delivers the conclusion to this year's storyline. Photo: Martin Bamford For those seeking more combat beyond the jousts, The Fighting Pit, which runs for most of the day, offers a steady stream of competitors ready to battle in brutal, full-contact medieval combat. Armed with weapons and shields, these close-quarters skirmishes are short but intense, and the risk of injury for those involved makes it all the more thrilling to watch. It's easy to get invested in these fights, not least because those competing give it their all – grappling, charging, and in some cases, roundhouse kicking each other until one emerges victorious. Alongside all of this large-scale entertainment, there's an Archery Enclave and Knight School, where guests can get hands-on experience with medieval weapons without the pressures of the Fighting Pit; the chance to seek an audience with Queen Helena (Catherine Davies) and her right hand, Lord Cunningham (Mack Newton), in the Royal Quarter; as well as a mead bar, a bazaar full of items for sale, and several food vendors. Within the Enchanted Woodlands, live performances from medieval folk band Trobar de Morte provide an otherworldly soundtrack to the area, which is steeped in supernatural goings-on and divination. In one corner of the woodlands, a coven of witches, including Tallow The Bog Witch (Anna Fraser) and Chlorine (Tasia Rhodes), gather around bubbling cauldrons, ready to invoke spirits. Elsewhere, the Guard Hut, which should be home to those sworn to protect the Kingdom, has been infiltrated by a troublesome spectre that has unfinished business to attend to. There are messages left from those beyond the veil, mysterious wooden symbols that have appeared amongst the trees, and a crumbling wall named Baulderon comes to life and speaks to guests throughout the day, seeking riddles, jokes and gossip from the Kingdom's adventurers. Photo: Martin Bamford One of the elements Loxwood has expanded upon for 2025 is their story quests, which are an additional £3 per quest. For this year's event, there are nine quests available, divided into three categories – Nobles, Heroes and Woodland Folk. Within each of these categories, there are bronze, silver and gold quests, denoting the complexity and amount of site-wide exploration required. Families with young adventurers will find any of the bronze quests a good fit, while those looking for a challenge that demands some leaps of logic and plenty of traversal across the Kingdom should focus on the gold quests. While the opportunity to become part of the story within Loxwood is likely a big enough draw for many attendees, each quest also includes a bespoke medal upon completion to sweeten the deal. During our visit, we worked through all three gold quests, which, according to some of Loxwood's population, is quite a challenge to fit into a single-day visit but is achievable and hugely satisfying for those looking to push themselves. In 'Grave Consequences', we tracked down the spirit responsible for a Kingdom-wide crime spree and helped them get their affairs in order before laying them to rest. 'The Perplexor' had us following a criminal mastermind's breadcrumb trail across the site, and 'All The World's A Plague' required us to decode a list of ingredients needed to soothe the ailments afflicting one of Lord Cunningham's 'friends'. Across all three of these quests, there's real humour and lightheartedness woven in every step. Much of this comes from Loxwood's talented cast, who will banter with adventurers, improvise based on their comments, and make a clear effort to involve everyone in the experience. There's also plenty of fun to be found in all of the written material scattered across noticeboards throughout the site and in The Kingdom of Loxwood Explorer's Guide, a theme-park-style map that is a huge help to first-time visitors and provides various clues and pieces of information needed to complete the quests in and amongst in-world advertisements for everything from Joust Eat to Hedgehog Grease. Photo: Martin Bamford While dressing up isn't required to enjoy Loxwood Joust, many attendees go above and beyond, arriving in elaborate outfits that match the experience's medieval setting. You can expect to see dozens of elf ears and flower crowns, visitors dressed in chainmail, and more axes, bows, and capes than you can count, as well as plenty of people proudly displaying their questing medals around their necks. More so at Loxwood Joust than any other immersive event we've attended in recent memory, the attendees were all incredibly open and friendly. We regularly overheard conversations beginning with compliments on others' costumes, and in our case, several chats with other guests started with questions about which quests we had completed. With so many of the attendees being dressed up, the sense of immersion was significantly enhanced, and the whole experience felt like stepping into a living, breathing medieval settlement. Photo: Martin Bamford One of Loxwood Joust's biggest strengths is how well it balances the large-scale, collective moments of spectacle, like the jousting tournaments and full-contact fights, with the smaller, more personal interactions with the Kingdom's cast of characters. When these two elements come together, they create an experience that's not only thoroughly entertaining for all attendees but also massively rewarding for those who want to engage with the world on a deeper level. With the organisers' commitment to continuously refining and expanding the show's immersive elements each year, an annual trip to the Kingdom of Loxwood feels like a very inviting, if not essential, appointment. We'll be back next summer, ready for more adventure. For Loxwood! ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Loxwood Joust runs at Loxwood Meadow in West Sussex on 2nd, 3rd, 9th, 10th, 16th & 17th August 2025. Tickets are priced from £35.00 per adult (children 14 and under are free entry) and can be purchased via loxwoodjoust.co.uk For more reviews of immersive experiences like The Loxwood Joust, check out our recent Reviews

This immersive exhibition depicting the sinking of the Titanic docks in Canada Water for a 14-week run. Photo: Madrid Artes Digitales On 10th April 1912, the RMS Titanic set off on its maiden voyage to New York from Southampton’s White Star Dock. At the time, it was the largest passenger ship ever built, holding over 2,200 people. Four days into its journey, it struck an iceberg some 400 miles off the coast of Canada and sank just three hours later, killing over 1,500 of those on board. The disaster would prompt a wave of new maritime safety laws to come into effect, including a mandate that every ship have enough lifeboats to accommodate all passengers and crew, and later inspire James Cameron’s Oscar-winning 1997 film, which remains one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Now, 113 years on from the disaster, Madrid Artes Digitales, who recently presented their immersive Tutankhamun exhibition at Immerse LDN, return to London with The Legend of the Titanic: The Immersive Exhibition at the appropriately named Dock X in Canada Water. While previously staged in Madrid, the London version, which runs until 2nd November 2025, has been expanded and enhanced with additional spaces, exhibits and enhanced VR sections. A mix of 360-degree immersive projections, virtual reality, and phone-based AR, alongside traditional displays of artefacts and movie props, The Legend of the Titanic: The Immersive Exhibition promises to ‘bring the ship’s story to life like never before’ and provides a respectful and poignant, yet engaging, way to learn more about the iconic ship and its passengers. Photo: Madrid Artes Digitales The opening rooms of The Legend of the Titanic operate like a traditional museum exhibit, with large wall-mounted panels providing context and historical information on the ship and its construction. Glass cabinets house numerous objects, including dining sets from the Titanic’s sister ship, the RMS Olympic, and handwritten letters. A handful of items from the 1997 film are also on display, including a screen-used life jacket signed by Bernard Hill, who played Captain Edward John Smith. Most of the items on display in this portion of the experience come from the personal collection of Juan Cruz Ercoreca, who has spent the last 15 years collecting Titanic-related artefacts and serves as curator for the London edition of The Legend of the Titanic. Later in the experience comes the first of two VR sections - a 7-minute-long orchestral tribute to the musicians who played aboard the Titanic and famously went down with the ship, entitled ‘Until the Orchestra Fell Silent’. Wearing VR headsets, seated guests see each band member play against various digitally rendered backdrops, including the Grand Staircase and the exterior of the ship. With music composed by René Merkelbach, it’s a moving celebration of their selflessness, but it provides little information or insight about them or their decision to keep playing until the bitter end. Photo: Madrid Artes Digitales The exhibition's main space, which offers 360-degree projections, contains a 30-minute-long looping film. It begins with a CGI timelapse of the Titanic being built in Belfast, before shifting to focus on two fictional passengers, Arthur and Elizabeth Callahan. We see the pair boarding the ship in Southampton, their exploration of its numerous interiors after a restless Elizabeth sneaks out of their cabin, and, of course, their escape during the eventual sinking of the ship. The most visually disorienting moments of the film see the interior of the ship begin to tilt as water rapidly fills the bow, and a poignant conclusion shows a shellshocked Elizabeth and Arthur onboard one of the lifeboats as the Titanic disappears into the sea on the horizon. In large part due to the height limitations of the venue, this portion of the experience isn't as visually impressive as the 360-degree projection room Madrid Artes Digitales presented in their recent Tutankhamun exhibition, which filled your entire field of vision, but the addition of a narrative certainly makes it easier for guests to follow along, and it remains an engaging experience all the same. Photo: Madrid Artes Digitales Far and away, the strongest part of The Legend of the Titanic is the VR ‘Metaverse’ experience, in which guests wear a wireless VR headset and walk through a virtual recreation of the ship. Beginning in the present day aboard a glass-lined submarine descending to the wreck, a portal to the past soon opens up and transports guests to the past. There, you can explore the cabins, staircases, engine room, and decks of the Titanic at your own pace. Conversations between passengers and crew members play out, and the detailed environments invite deeper solo exploration. It's a marked step up from the previous Metaverse offering from MAD and is a much grander affair. A scene inside the ship's engine room, in which visitors move along elevated platforms, has the potential to inspire vertigo for those looking over the edge, and there are some awe-inspiring moments, including a recreation of the ship's Grand Staircase and a walk along the deck that showcases the ship's scale. Alongside these moments, there's a photo opportunity that lets people re-enact one of the best-known scenes from Titanic, with Jack and Rose at the bow of the ship, and several interactive displays designed for kids, including a tabletop touchscreen with Titanic-themed games and a drawing station that can digitise drawings and project them onto a digital display of Southampton dock. Photo: Madrid Artes Digitales London's immersive landscape has been populated with numerous projection-led experiences for some time now. Long before Lightroom and Frameless existed, the likes of Shoreditch's Immersive Van Gogh showed that there was a notable appetite for these kinds of experiences. Showing no sign of dwindling interest, recently there's been a shift towards creating experiences with a more educational focus, with the likes of The Moonwalkers with Tom Hanks and last year's BBC Earth Experience leading the way. While there's constant debate around just how 'immersive' these kinds of experiences really are, they undoubtedly offer a modern way to learn about the world around us that's not always possible within a traditional museum setting. While The Legend of the Titanic doesn't stray far from the format established by Madrid Artes Digitales with Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition, it shows that they're adept at creating educational yet engaging experiences. It's a poignant and respectful exploration of the Titanic that focuses just as much on the people who lost their lives as it does on the spectacle of the sinking itself, and is a strong addition to the city's growing catalogue of immersive exhibitions. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Legend of the Titanic: The Immersive Exhibition runs at Dock X in Canada Water until 2nd November 2025. Tickets are priced from £27.00 and can be booked via feverup.com For more reviews of immersive exhibitions and experiences like The Legend of the Titanic, check out our recent Reviews

We grapple with what we want out of life in this true once-in-a-lifetime experience by Yannick Trapman-O'Brien. Photo: Lyra Levin If you could have anything in the world, without restrictions, what would you want? What would you give up to have it? These are the questions at the centre of Yannick Trapman-O'Brien's cult hit Undersigned, which makes its long-awaited international debut this summer with dates in London, Edinburgh and Amsterdam. Described as a 'deeply personal and introspective psychological thriller' for an audience of one, Undersigned invites those who attend to look inwards and selfishly declare what they want from life, safe in the knowledge that everything discussed during their appointment won't ever leave the room. Attendees sit blindfolded, across the table from Trapman-O'Brien, for nearly the entire show as they hammer out the details of a Faustian pact, weighing up what they desire with what they're willing to lose and how to balance the scales between the two. With each participant never allowed to return after their appointment, it's a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience and one of the most emotionally affecting pieces of work we've ever been a part of. We're not going to give away any of the key moments from Undersigned in this review. In part, to not influence the actions of anyone lucky enough to attend, but also because our experience was so confronting and raw that it revealed things about ourselves that we'd never thought about before, let alone verbalised. For us, taking part in Undersigned was an emotionally charged and cathartic experience that moved us to tears, and the show's impact is still being felt days later. Photo: Lyra Levin The one-on-one has long been a highly sought-after experience for immersive theatre fans. Whether it be within the sprawling worlds created by Punchdrunk, where people will elbow each other out of the way if it means increasing their odds of being the chosen one, or in works like Deadweight Theatre's The Manikins: a work in progress and Candle House Collective's phone-based Lennox Mutual, being a performer's sole focus offers both intimacy and exclusivity but also comes at a cost: intensity. With nowhere to hide and the focus placed squarely on a single participant, there's often a self-imposed pressure to 'perform'. Many people (ourselves included) can end up responding in ways they think the performer wants them to, rather than with complete honesty. Within Undersigned, this notion is addressed head-on. During the onboarding, it's agreed that the attendee must speak honestly. Throughout the show, Trapman-O'Brien digs into each response to expose the kernel of truth at the centre, even if the attendee's initial response to a question doesn't quite meet that agreement, until their true feelings are made clear. Photo: Lyra Levin Trapman-O'Brien weaves attendees' offhand comments and fleeting ideas back into the conversation in a disarmingly natural way, helping close the gap between what's said and what's really being felt. From the outset, it's clear that the other voice in the room could verbally run rings around you if they so wished. Truthfulness and vulnerability are the only real tools available. Anyone recoiling at the idea of being pushed into uncomfortable topics will find solace in the show's safeguarding. While subjects including sex, money, power and pleasure are all on the table, care is taken to avoid genuine discomfort. Participants can veto topics before or during the appointment. While it's meant to be an emotionally raw and revealing experience, it never tries to deliberately cause participants true discomfort. There's also great care taken to ensure ample space is given to decompress when all things are said and done as part of an offboarding process, which is handled with a level of care far greater than is typically present in immersive work. Photo: Lyra Levin In a potentially risky financial move for a small-scale production, a not-insignificant portion of each participant's ticket price is presented to them in an envelope at the end of their appointment. They're free to leave with it if the show didn't meet their expectations, but for those who feel it delivered more than they bargained for, there's the option to give more. There's no pressure or pitch, only trust that each person will respond in a way that feels right to them in the moment. Ticketing for Undersigned also breaks with convention. While a few appointments are made publicly available when the show springs up in a new city, a large number of them are set aside for those who have either been on the show's long waiting list or have been put forward by a previous participant, who received a business card with a QR code at the end of their appointment to pass on. It positions the show as something rare and valuable, meant to be shared only with those who would appreciate the opportunity and benefit from it. It's fair to say that Undersigned demands a lot from those who take part, but only because it offers just as much in return. At its core, it's a piece about choices. You're not asked to play a role or be anything you're not; all that's required is honesty and openness. Those willing to give it are rewarded with the chance to indulge in selfishness without judgement and learn more about themselves than they bargained for. With little more than a blindfold, a candle and a notepad, Yannick Trapman-O'Brien has created a phenomenal piece of immersive theatre. Emotionally devastating, profoundly intimate and potentially life-changing, Undersigned is unlike anything else we've ever attended and has fundamentally changed how we see ourselves. ★★★★★ [Ticket gifted in exchange for an honest review] Undersigned ran at COLAB Tower in London Bridge from 24th to 26th July 2025. It will be at the Edinburgh Fringe's Underbelly Cowgate from 31st July to 12th August 2025. Tickets for dates at the Edinburgh Fringe are priced from £13.50 and can be booked via underbellyedinburgh.co.uk You can join the publist waitlist for future appointments via yannickto.com/undersigned For more reviews of experiences like Yannick Trapman-O'Brien's Undersigned, check out our recent Reviews

This immersive pop-up experience gives guests the chance to become Dexter's Dark Passenger and relive key moments from his life. Photo: Harvey Williams-Fairley To coincide with the release of Dexter: Resurrection on Paramount+ this week, Dexter: The Experience has opened in London for a four-day run at 83 Rivington Street in Shoreditch. The promenade immersive experience invites visitors to become the physical manifestation of serial killer Dexter's Dark Passenger and step into the shoes of the TV series' titular character as they relive several key moments from Dexter's past. Tickets to the experience were available free of charge (though limited) through Fever, with a walk-up queue available outside the venue for those who missed out. While Dexter: The Experience is by no means the first immersive pop-up experience to open in London alongside the debut of a new TV series, it stands alongside The Boys Get The V and IT Chapter 2 at The Vaults as one of the strongest examples of this kind of event that we've seen in recent years. Featuring faithful recreations of some of the show's most well-known moments and places, a tone that matches the source material perfectly, and some unexpected moments along the way, it's a hugely satisfying experience for fans of the show and massively exceeded our expectations for a free-to-attend experience. Photo: Harvey Williams-Fairley Dexter: The Experience begins in a small plastic-lined room with an introductory video recapping key events of the TV series, acting as both a refresher for long-time fans and some much-needed context for those who have never seen the show. With a voiceover from Michael C. Hall, which has been recorded especially for the experience, the disembodied voice of Dexter explains that guests are there to act as his 'Dark Passenger' and are coming along for a ride through his memories. As the voiceover concludes, Dexter's foster father, Harry Morgan, enters the room dressed in a full police uniform. Speaking directly to the group with sustained eye contact and a serious expression, he refers to each audience member individually as 'Dexter' (a practice that occurs repeatedly throughout the experience). In an extended monologue, Harry discusses the darkness he saw in Dexter as a child and recounts the code he created that would allow his adopted son's bloodthirsty urges to be satisfied without harming innocent people. Much like in the show, Michael C. Hall's voiceover occasionally interjects to provide a window into Dexter's mind, which by the end of the scene is focused less on Harry and more on locating Harrison (a plot point that'll be explored in the upcoming series). Moving into a dimly lit, blood-splattered shipping container, guests then get to experience the defining moment of Dexter's childhood – when his mother was killed with a chainsaw in front of him and his brother Brian. It's a tense few minutes as the sound of screams and the chainsaw motor reverberate around the container's metal walls in near darkness before Harry bursts in to save the twins and escort people to safety. Photo: Harvey Williams-Fairley Jumping forward in time, guests then enter the Forensics Analysis office at Miami Metro Police Department and are greeted by CSI Chief Tanya Martin, who features in the 1990s-set prequel series, Dexter: Original Sin. The timelines of scenes featured in the experience get purposefully muddled here, as guests have entered a memory from the Season 2 episode 'There's Something About Harry', despite Tanya not being present in either that season or any of the other 90+ episodes in the original series. This is explained away by some tongue-in-cheek voiceover from Hall, who claims, 'That's how memory works, I guess. When your life flashes before your eyes, things get a bit...' before being cut off by Tanya. Guests are told that earlier in the day, a wooden box containing fifty blood slides from The Bay Harbour Butcher was found in a Miami International Airport car park. While the blood slides belong to Dexter, his colleague, Sgt James Doakes, is being framed after recently figuring out the truth about Dexter, and the audience needs to cover their tracks and ensure Doakes is firmly tied to the recent discovery. Photo: Harvey Williams-Fairley In a race against the clock, the blood slides need to be inserted into an analyser to load the associated DNA match on a central computer. That information then needs to be transferred onto whiteboards around the room. There's frantic sprinting across the room while screams of blood types, health conditions and toxicology information are shared. While there doesn't appear to be a way to fail at these puzzles, those in our group gave it their all regardless, which may be down to Tanya encouraging both teams of 'rookies' to keep working as fast as possible. While it's hard to take it in while sprinting around the room, there's an impressive attention to detail given to everything in the space. There's piles of Playboy magazines left by Masuka, an expired ID badge showing a younger, Original Sin-era Dexter, a blood centrifuge and an evidence board with red string linking multiple people and places, amongst other smaller details, such as a post-it note reminding Masuka to tell Batista 'the joke about the horse and the nun' on a computer monitor and other in-world notes from more of the series unseen characters. Photo: Harvey Williams-Fairley In the next space, the group is tasked with piecing together a mannequin on a mortuary table from two huge bins filled with dozens of body parts. This puzzle, which has been set by The Ice Truck Killer (Dexter's brother Brian), is set within the back of a refrigerated truck and requires more attention to detail than initially appears. While all of the mannequin pieces would no doubt fit together, the challenge lies in successfully locating the body parts with numbered symbols engraved on them. There's a strong reveal at the end of this puzzle that ties it back to the events we experienced earlier in the shipping container, further cementing the fact that Dexter and Brian are two sides of the same coin, forever linked by their shared traumatic past. Photo: Harvey Williams-Fairley Of course, it wouldn't be a pop-up immersive experience without some photo opportunities. In Dexter: The Experience, they come in the way of a full-scale recreation of the blood-filled bathtub that Dexter's wife, Rita, is found in from Season 4 and the infamous plastic-lined kill rooms that Dexter sets up countless times throughout the series. Hidden amongst these scenes are numerous rewarding easter eggs for those who examine the spaces closely enough, including a phone that plays Rita's final voicemail to Dexter and a collection of obituary clippings put together by Nurse Mary (who featured in Season 1 of the original series and Dexter: Original Sin). Photos: Harvey Williams-Fairley The final scene of Dexter: The Experience has guests enter a situation unfamiliar to even the most die-hard fan, as it offers a glimpse into Dexter's future and a peek into what's to come in Dexter: Resurrection. Set in the hallway of a New York hotel, which Dexter has tracked Harrison to, guests are tasked with working out the code to open a locked door. Throughout the space, there are UV-based clues, which all appear in succession after the previous clue is found. While the previous puzzles in Dexter: The Experience required teams to work in smaller groups, this final challenge has everyone working together. There's some light lateral thinking involved, with each clue delivered in the form of a riddle, but much like how Dexter can escape any precarious situation largely unscathed, guests will likely succeed regardless of how well they solve these riddles. Photo: Harvey Williams-Fairley While it's perhaps unfair to judge a free-to-attend pop-up experience against the countless other shows on offer within London's immersive scene, Dexter: The Experience still holds up pretty well in comparison. With detailed sets full of easter eggs, it's clear that great care has been taken to faithfully recreate scenes and environments from the original series to a degree even the biggest superfan wouldn't find fault with. The 45-minute-long experience moves at a brisk pace with little downtime, and tonally it matches the original series wonderfully. While there's not a huge amount of freedom offered to guests inside the experience, the puzzles presented were all varied and offered ample opportunity to step into the shoes of the show's titular character with no real-life killing required. Running for a limited time, Dexter: The Experience more than earns its place among London’s strongest IP-driven immersive events. It also demonstrates that, given the right conditions, even free-ticket pop-ups can deliver something with real atmosphere, attention to detail, and a satisfying narrative, rather than feeling like a forgettable promotional event. It’s a killer way to spend an hour, and we’d gladly return as Dexter’s Dark Passenger if the opportunity arose. ★★★★ Dexter: The Experience runs at 83 Rivington Street in Shoreditch until 13th July 2025. Tickets are sold out, but there is a standby queue available for those without pre-booked tickets. For more information on Dexter: The Experience, visit dextertheexperience.co.uk For more reviews of immersive shows like Dexter: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews.

This large-scale immersive show from Sage & Jester is visually stunning but buckles under the weight of its narrative shortcomings. Photo: Helen Murray In a cavernous warehouse on the bank of the River Thames in Deptford sits STOREHOUSE, the debut immersive promenade show from Sage & Jester. Anyone who's even mildly invested in London's immersive scene will have seen mention of the show over the last few months, with the company having hosted an extensive pre-show campaign, which included a roaming pop-up experience in the form of STOREHOUSE Truck, a string of events at The Pleasance in North London featuring conversations with the likes of Rachel Parris and Jamie Bartlett, and heaps of marketing on both social media and tube posters across the city. If London's immersive scene had been waiting for a new blockbuster production during Punchdrunk's downtime following The Burnt City and Viola's Room, STOREHOUSE, at first, appeared to be it. When first announced, it was pitched as 'one of the UK's most artistically daring and large-scale immersive theatre shows'. With a creative team made up of some heavyweight names, including Sophie Larsmon, Donnacadh O'Brian, and Caro Murphy, STOREHOUSE arrived with significant pedigree. Sage & Jester founder Liana Patarkatsishvili also has first-hand experience of the impact those in power can wield through disinformation after IMEDIA, an independent television station in Georgia, which was founded by her father, was seized by the Georgian government and used to broadcast fake news in 2010. Ahead of opening, all signs pointed to this show looking to tackle misinformation with a nuanced take from lived experience. Sadly, despite STOREHOUSE having some exceptionally beautiful spaces that are as detailed as they are huge, the show's narrative seems to have nothing new to say about the digital age, the impact of misinformation on everyday people, and our ability to fight against it. Photo: Helen Murray Within the world of the show, STOREHOUSE was founded in 1983 with a clear mission: to catalogue and archive every piece of information ever shared online and assign it a numerical value based on the quality. While the overall quality of the world's online posts has taken a dive since the creation of social media, all of this work was nonetheless in aid of something, 'The Great Aggregation', a seismic event due to have taken place on 1st January 2025 and provide a universal truth for all of humanity. It'll come as no surprise that The Great Aggregation never materialised, and as one of the show's characters put it, the whole thing was an 'epic fail'. While the facility was seemingly chugging along fine throughout the 90s and 00s, the workers at STOREHOUSE, who are made up of caretakers, book binders and stackers, have been struggling to keep up with the workload in recent years thanks to the explosion of social media. On top of that, the place is beginning to fall apart under the pressure. Ink is leaking from the ceilings, books are growing mouldy and covered in strange Rorschach test-like spots, and the walls of the facility have started to emit ominous whispers. In an attempt to get STOREHOUSE back on track amid declining staff morale, a recruitment drive is underway, and the audience, acting as new trustees, are invited to tour the facility to learn more about the work that's been done on-site for the last 40 years. Photo: Helen Murray The scale of STOREHOUSE is pretty staggering and easily dwarfs any other immersive production in recent memory. It's a positive step for London's immersive scene to have another company creating work at the scale often reserved for the likes of Secret Cinema and Punchdrunk, and while each group of audience members will only experience around 1/4 of the venue over their 90-minute experience, every square foot of Deptford Storehouse's gargantuan footprint has been put to use, with four builds of the main show space filling the building. Alice Help's production design, which is far and away the best part of STOREHOUSE, rivals that of The Burnt City when it comes to the kind of small details immersive fans lap up. Handwritten notes are scattered throughout the book binders' room alongside a host of 80s tech and period-accurate paraphernalia; the whispering stacks - complete with their shrines for daily worship - are akin to a cathedral made of sheep's wool and towers over audiences, while the willow stacks, which have been crafted and shaped using real willow, feel like stepping inside a vast, multi-layered woodland den. Underfoot, you find natural material like bark and sand, which adds further tactility to spaces already drenched in unique, organic materials. Photo: Helen Murray Coupled with some wonderfully responsive lighting design from Ben Donoghue, the show offers up the chance to explore and interact with spaces that are on a scale rarely seen within an immersive show. The exceptional design on display in all of STOREHOUSE's spaces creates an otherworldly, magical feeling that stands alongside Viola's Room in terms of evoking the senses, even if it easily eclipses Punchdrunk's recent offering in terms of scope. The final moments of STOREHOUSE see audiences ascend above the ground floor level they've spent so much of the show exploring to reveal the true scale of the production. It's so big you can barely make out the other end of the building, and looking across the entirety of Deptford Storehouse from above, it's immediately clear just how much care and attention has gone into building this world and how big a cheque it must have required to create. Photo: Helen Murray On the flip side, the story STOREHOUSE offers to audiences is deeply underbaked. There's a huge focus placed on the inner workings of the fictional facility, which is occupied by one-dimensional characters who don't seem to have any interest in the nuance of such pressing ideas as fake news, misinformation, propaganda and deep fakes. There's passing mention given to real-world examples of police brutality and racial injustice courtesy of stacker Rami (Scott Karim), and bookbinder Andie (Dawn Butler) shares a story of their big break in the art world never materialising due to cancel culture, but as soon as they begin to approach how these events impacted them on a personal level, they're interrupted by either a blaring alarm or another STOREHOUSE worker, who swiftly changes the subject. Those trying to keep up with the storyline of STOREHOUSE will find themselves bogged down in lengthy monologues that are pure exposition, covering in detail the inter-departmental politics of the facility. There's no mention of why governments, or those in power, would want to deploy misinformation and fake news, the impact it has on communities and everyday people, and how it's shaped our online spaces. Photo: Helen Murray With the show offering a frustratingly basic opinion on some of the biggest issues of our time, it's a surprise that Liana's Patarkatsishvili firsthand experience with these issues doesn't seem to have influenced the writing at all, with the story being told in STOREHOUSE failing to show the personal impact such campaigns have on everyday people. Before Sage & Jester launched, much of the company's creative team, including Liana Patarkatsishvili, operated under the banner of Medea. At last year's Edinburgh Fringe, they presented an audio experience called Illuminated Lies, which was made up of voice recordings from individuals who have been personally affected by misinformation and fake news. Less than a year later, and with a space infinitely bigger than the back of the black cab in which Illuminated Lies took place, to see the fallout and real-world consequences that these misinformation campaigns can have on individuals be completely absent from STOREHOUSE feels like both a step backwards and a glaring omission. Photo: Helen Murray In terms of interactivity, STOREHOUSE also offers very little for audiences to do and next to no way in which to influence the events that unfold during the show. There are a couple of small fetch quests in which audiences either search the space for postcards, listen to and note down the whispers coming from the walls, or try to match Rorschach-like ink spots from within the pages of bound books. There's a more substantial chance for trustees to try their hand at being stackers, which is soundtracked by Bucks Fizz's Making Your Mind Up, and involves running around the willow-lined stacks, but beyond that and some light interaction answering broad questions like 'What changes would you implement to STOREHOUSE?' and 'What inspires hope?', the audience is largely passive throughout. The combination of this light interaction with the underdeveloped story completely removes any emotional investment in the story on display throughout STOREHOUSE and makes the later revelations in the show's finale void of any real stakes. What should be a rousing call to arms, with audiences ready to get on board with the idea of dismantling the systems deployed by those in power, instead receives a muted response from most of the crowd. While the narrative of STOREHOUSE diminishes the impact of the overall experience, there's a lot to enjoy in experiencing the show's vast size and rich attention to detail. With a huge budget and an even bigger venue, this is immersive theatre on the grandest possible scale, and we should try to savour it when it so rarely comes along, shortcomings and all. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] STOREHOUSE runs until 20th September at Deptford Storehouse. Tickets are priced from £37.50. For more information and to book tickets, visit sageandjester.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like STOREHOUSE, check out our recent Reviews.