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Immersive Rumours received complimentary tickets to this show and as such, are disclosing this information before  our review. They have had no input in the below and all thoughts are our own. Canada Water seems to do pretty well for itself when it comes to immersive experiences - there's an area a stones throw from the tube station that has been home to some of the capital’s best experiences in the last decade. Whether it’s Secret Cinema’s run of shows between 2015 and 2016 at Harmsworth Quays that saw the company at a creative high or the ongoing story within Phantom Peak, Canada Water is a hotspot for great immersive work. This trend continues with Rumble In The Jungle Rematch, taking place at Dock X from now until the end of October. Inspired by the events surrounding the infamous 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, the latest show from Rematch - who specialise in recreating infamous sporting moments of the past, is a heavyweight contender for one of the best new immersive shows of the year. Rumble In The Jungle Rematch has big shoes to fill - how can you try and do justice to what is widely regarded as the best sporting moment of all time? Director Miguel Hernando Torres Umba seems to have found the answer - by expanding the scope of the show well beyond the boxing ring, to the entire city of Kinshasa. It’s a show that explores the impact and legacy these once-in-a-lifetime events have on individuals, countries, and the culture as a whole and demonstrates how the ripple effect from one night can echo for decades afterwards. In 1974, the country of Zaire was overseen by President Mobutu, who had seized power in a coup nine years prior to the big fight. Throughout his presidency, he would regularly have political opponents killed, repeatably used the country’s infrastructure and resources to grow his own personal wealth, and mismanaged the country’s economy amongst many other things. Most agree that the boxing match took place in Zaire in an attempt to both distract from the political scrutiny Mobutu was under at the time and improve the reputation of Zaire to the wider world - which today we refer to as sports-washing. In the days leading up to your visit, you’ll be encouraged to register on the events online portal. Once on there, you’re offered a choice of four character types - World Boxing Organiser, Reporter, Performer and Spectator. Each has its own outfit suggestions and point of contact once you’ve made it to Kinshasa. For our visit, we chose to be Reporters, and our contact was David Frost - who gave us a thorough walk-and-talk introduction to the city of Kinshas once we found him. He also tasked us with trying to interview the two fighters on tape (though this seems to be a unique one-off experience, as we didn’t see any other reporters with tape recorders in hand during our evening...) Once inside you’re free to explore the space - which is impressively large, complete with multiple stages, bars and food vendors, a locker room, market stalls and training areas. While it’s all built to a very high standard and has a lot of small details scattered throughout, there isn’t much else to discover after your initial walkthrough of the space, and the focus of the show’s immersive elements seems to be on large crowd experiences over individual exploration, though it's there if you dive head first into the experience... The tape recorder we'd been handed earlier in the evening came into its own during a scene where George Foreman was doing a speech in the market area mid way through the show. While attempting to 'record' what was being said, George spotted us in the mass of observers and beckoned us over to ask him a few questions in front of the crowd. Alexander Ajuwon, who portrays George Foreman, does a stellar job of capturing his mannerisms, and we found ourselves rooting for him to win, even already knowing the outcome of the yet-to-happen fight. Shortly after our on-stage interview, we followed a hint from David Frost we got earlier in the show and we were able to speak to a character in a secluded corner after a confrontation with the local military police and learn more about their opinions on the wider political climate in Zaire at the time. It’s a testament to the show that it doesn’t shy away from addressing the reality of the times. There are repeated references to the hardship that locals find themselves under despite the eyes of the world turning to their backyards, and you can sense the tension between what is outwardly portrayed to be happening in Zaire and the reality away from the cameras. For non-reporters, their experiences will likely differ as their focus is centred elsewhere from the outset. Those who opt for the World Boxing Committee character type could likely spend their time only following the boxers around from press conferences to interviews to training sessions and get a deeper feel for the fighters’ headspaces and relationship with one another going into the fight. If you’re mainly there as a fan of boxing, this feels like the path for you. The same goes for those who choose to be Supporting Artists - the focus would largely be on the musical aspects of the experience, of which the show has many. It all comes to a head just before the finale of the show with a performance on the main stage featuring James Brown, Miriam Makeba and Cecil Cruz as part of Zaire 74 - a largely forgotten music festival that took place in the build to the fight. Photo: Rumble In The Jungle Rematch/Lox Photography For those who want a bit more history concerning Muhammad Ali and his journey leading up to the fight, there’s a 10-minute VR experience tucked away towards the back of the venue, which while being very informative, is maybe overly long when you can remove the headset and see a real-life interpretation of Ali with your own eyes in the same space. The food offerings for those who travel to Kinshasa is courtesy of The Future Plate and is a mix of Congolese and Western fusion. The smell of their cooking permeates the venue and adds another level of immersion for guests, whether they chose to eat or not. Another nice touch within Rumble In The Jungle is the cup system for drinks - for a £1 charge you get a reusable cup themed to the fight which also serves as a nice souvenir of the experience. For those inclined, there's also show programmes and a selection of merchandise available. The main event on the Rumble In The Jungle Rematch card is undoubtedly the finale of the show, which seems a live recreation of the Ali-Foreman fight. With audiences flanking three sides of the boxing ring on tiered seating, and a backdrop of archive footage from the original fight, live coverage of Rematch's recreation, and several well executed pre-recorded moments projected behind the ring, the recreation of the fight is a sight to behold from start to finish. Rematch's recreation contains some of the most impressive fight choreography we’ve seen on a stage, and is breathtaking to watch. With every punch, block and dodge on the huge backing screen being mirrored precisely by the two actors playing Ali and Foreman, it’s a spectacle from start to finish and witnessing it first-hand is undoubtably the highlight of the show. ★★★★ Rumble In The Jungle Rematch is located in Canada Water and is current set to run until October 29th. For more information visit rumbleinthejunglerematch.com

Midnight Circle Productions return to The Crypt in Bethnal Green for a two-week run of Frankenstein: An Immersive Show. It's an intimate portrayal of obsession and grief that reframes the original text into a story focused on one family's downfall. Immersive Rumours received complimentary tickets to this show and as such, are disclosing this information before our review. They have had no input in the below and all thoughts are our own. Following the success of Midnight Circle Productions' adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Grey earlier this year, this new immersive theatre company have seemingly found themselves right at home adapting classic works of fiction into promenade theatre. Taking over the basement level of a Bethnal Green church, this production of Frankenstein is as dark and gothic as one would expect. Midnight Circle’s version reworks Mary Shelley's original text to succeed as an immersive show - the books original opening, set in the arctic ice, is substituted for the warmth of a tavern as Robert Walton (Benjamin Nicholas) seeks out determined crewmates for his soon-to-be departing voyage. Drowning his sorrows at the back of the tavern is Frankenstein, who is encouraged by Walton to recount the tale of how he lost everything he held dear over a stiff drink. Photo: Midnight Circle Productions With a cast of seven portraying both the Frankenstein family and their inner circle, the character list has been cut down to the essentials, and the books setting gets the same treatment - with all of the action now taking place in and around the family home in Geneva. The biggest change however is undoubtedly reworking the creature to no longer be an assortment of body parts and chemicals, but is instead a reanimated Caroline Frankenstein - mother to Victor, who now passes away shortly after his return from university to be married. While the limit of the show's cast size would be more than enough justification for allowing the roles of Caroline and the Creature to be portrayed by the same actor, we suspect it had more to do with them knowing they had someone within the company who would bring something unique to the role.. Nadia Lamin - who is the pieces stand-out performer, has the enviable job of portraying the creature. She brilliantly metamorphosises throughout the duration of the show from something that can only express itself through convulsions and screams of anguish into the voice of reason to Miles Blanch’s tormented Victor. Photo: Midnight Circle Productions A pivotal scene partway through the show where Victor successfully reanimates his dead mother's corpse highlights Lamin's physicality and range. Choreographed by Chris Evans, we witness Caroline's lifeless body - initially being held up by the rest of the cast like a marionette on strings, return to life. Collapsing onto the floor in shock, slowly coming to terms with this second chance at living, her violent screams as she writhes with pain in and amongst the audience are harrowing and affecting. The same fate befalls Harry Harding's Alfonso later in the show, which further cements that scenes of Victor playing God are amongst the show's most engaging. Photos: Roj Whitelock Elsewhere in the venue, there are small character moments on offer - early on in the show we witness a very much still-alive Caroline helping soon-to-be daughter-in-law Elizabeth (Niamh Handley-Vaughan) prepare to be reunited with Victor after his extended absence. Alfonso Frankenstein (Harry Harding) delivers a heartwarming speech about his love and admiration for his family, and the pairing of William Frankenstein (Pierce Mackenzie) and Henry Clerval (Michael McGarry) had a moment involving a plate of grapes that got good laughs from our audience. Photo: Midnight Circle Productions As with most immersive theatre, you're free to follow the actors as they split off into separate rooms around the venue. Often you've got to quickly decide who to follow as the cast transitions from one space to another, and in an intimate setting like The Crypt - which is made up of five rooms of various size, you unfortunately have to take your proximity to the nearest doorway into account. There was more than one occasion where we simply couldn't get into the space a scene was taking place in as we were last out the previous room, so had to settle for exploring elsewhere. The largest of the venue's rooms - which is the setting for all of the show's key scenes, just about held all 25 or so visitors, along with the cast. The show is designed in a way that means you can't miss these scenes, but even then we found ourselves very aware that we were potentially blocking either someone else's view or stood in front of a door that might open any second. Photo: Midnight Circle Productions If you're looking for an immersive experience in London this October, Frankenstein: An Immersive Show is a great choice - with a strong cast and interesting creative choices that reframes the original book, it's an experience that offers something different to the norm. We'll no doubt be hearing more from Midnight Circle Production in the near future as they no doubt still have plenty of classic novels left to adapt - regardless of what it may be, we'll be eagerly awaiting our next visit to the The Crypt. ★★★ ½ Frankenstein: An Immersive Show runs until Saturday 14th October. Tickets are priced at £27.80 and can be booked via eventbrite . Find out more about Midnight Circle Productions via their Instagram .

Midnight Circle Productions, the immersive theatre company that previously mounted Immersive Picture of Dorian Gray at Crypt (Bethnal Green) earlier this year, return for a two-week run of Frankenstein: An Immersive Show in October. Directed by Nicholas Benjamin, the adaptation of the 1818 Mary Shelley gothic novel will see the audience enter the memories of Victor Frankenstein against the backdrop of dingy pubs and creepy laboratories in Victorian London. The immersive show will take place at Crypt in Bethnal Green and will welcome visitors from 3rd October until 14th October. The show's official synopsis is below... Descend into the depths of the Crypt Tavern; a home of sailors, abandoned dreams and dark secrets. Amongst this rabble lurks Victor Frankenstein, a man with a past deeper and darker than you would ever guess. A story of loss, pain and one man's scientific folly. The question is, is he running from it or frantically pursuing it? The cast has been confirmed as follows... Victor Frankenstein will be played by Miles Blanch Caroline Frankenstein will be played by Nadia Lamin Elizabeth Lazenza will be played by Niamh-Handley-Vaughan Robert Walton will be played by Nicholas Benjamin Alphonse Frankenstein will be played by Harry Harding Henry Clerval will be played by Michael McGarry William Frankenstein will be played by Piers Mackenzie All photos by Roj Whitelock Speaking about the upcoming adaptation, director Nicholas Benjamin comments. Frankenstein has always struck me as a grossly misused text when it comes to the media of film. Say the name ‘Frankenstein’ and you’ll probably think of some crazed mad scientist screaming ‘It’s alive! It’s alive!’, or even worse a hulking figure with bolts coming out of its neck. To me ‘Frankenstein’ is a study of human grief and its potential repercussions, the actions of its titular character are inspired by his desire to overcome the mortal weakness of death. However, it’s through these actions that the real weaknesses of humankind are shown, anger, obsession, and denial. By once again giving the audience the choice on what aspect of the story to follow, I hope to give them the chance to view the actions of grieving humankind and conclude whether they are justified. Together let’s discover at what point a man creates a monster -- Frankenstein: An Immersive Show runs from Tuesday 3rd October to Saturday 14th October. Tickets are priced at £27.80 and can be booked via eventbrite . Find out more about Midnight Circle Productions via their Facebook page .

Immersive Rumours received complimentary tickets to this show and as such, are disclosing this information before  our review of BOUND. The producers have had no input in the below and all thoughts are our own. BOUND, the latest immersive theatre production from Amber Jarman-Crainey, delves into the numerous physical and emotional reactions people can have to grief. With nine storylines running concurrently across the five floors of Bargehouse on South Bank and nine performers to follow as they move around the space, the show encourages audiences to process and reflect upon their own experiences of grief and take a look at how it impacts people differently. The show came to be following the passing of Amber’s older brother in 2020 and has been created in collaboration with grief specialists to incorporate real-life experiences. For BOUND, the show takes over the entirety of Bargehouse, a former meatpacking warehouse that sits directly behind OXO Tower on South Bank. With exposed brick and walls that look like they're moments away from crumbling down, it's the kind of venue immersive creators must dream about. While some parts of the building remain intentionally untouched, others have been transformed by the creative efforts of Sara Holmes, Susie Carlino, and Lara Sanjar. The set design, which includes a wild meadow of floral plants, twisting willow structures, and various drapings across the venue's five floors, is more a collection of art installations than the kind of realistic, detailed sets you'd expect at something like a Punchdrunk show. The atmosphere is further enhanced by Anna Warren's soundscape, a mix of drones and hums that reverberate through the hallways, creating a foreboding experience that draws you deeper into the world as you explore it more. Throughout the show, anguished screams frequently echo through the corridors and staircases of Bargehouse, further underscoring the rawness of the emotions on display. Photo: Rachel Patrice Fallon A large focus has been put on creating storylines told through physical movement rather than dialogue. While they’re all engaging to watch, the most powerful moments in BOUND occur when the performers interact directly with one another, stepping out of their individual, isolated storylines. The standout scenes from our visit included Rosalia Panepinto and Julian Nicols' performances as part of the Rooted Love storyline and the intersection of Vinicius Salles' Shelter storyline with Madeline Napier's live cello performance on the top floor of Bargehouse.   Angela Harvey's portrayal of a daughter grieving her father's loss stands out as the most accessible storyline in the show. One of only a few storylines that incorporate dialogue more directly, her extended monologue detailing fond childhood memories and ruminations on how to continue onwards allows those who pick up this storyline mid-way through a clearer idea of the storylines themes. Later in the show, when the words give way to more physical expressions of grief - drowning her sorrow in alcohol, heckling other performers while staggering through the venue - we better understand their emotional journey than those told purely through physical movement, which is more abstract and open to interpretation. Photo: Rachel Patrice Fallon There are occasional moments in BOUND where the performers interact directly with the audience. In any immersive work, there's a thrill to these brief glimpses of connection, but it's amplified further in BOUND by the emotional distance between the characters, each isolated in their own grief, and the audience, who can largely do nothing but silently observe.   During our visit, we shared a moment with Lee Clayden's character as part of the Living Grief storyline, in which their character tries to navigate the world alone with early-onset dementia. Later, they recognised us, took us by the hand, and led us into another room to express their gratitude for our earlier kindness - a cathartic moment that has stayed with us long after. In an environment where the main characters rarely find relief from their pain, being able to offer help to someone in distress felt like a profound act of connection. Photo: Rachel Patrice Fallon Logistically, the show has several moments in which you might struggle to locate any of the performers as they continue to move around the massive venue. You can expect to be regularly running up and down several flights of stairs if you're dead set on following a specific character for an extended period, and the venue's numerous pathways can lead to you losing characters at a moment's notice as they round a corner and seemingly disappear completely. The tight staircases can also cause some bottlenecking at times. Photos: Rachel Patrice Fallon Fans of movement-focused immersive work will likely find a lot to admire in BOUND. It’s an impactful and thought-provoking show that invites audiences to reflect on their own experiences of grief and and offers a space to lighten the burden for those still carrying it. 8/10 BOUND runs at Bargehouse on South Bank from 25th August - 8th September. Tickets start at £11.55 for students and £15.87 for general admission. To book and find out more, visit coinstreet.org

Immersive Rumours received complimentary tickets to this experience and as such, are disclosing this information before  our review of Sherlock: The Official Live Game. The producers have had no input in the below and all thoughts are our own. Photo: Nic Crilly-Hargrave Few London escape rooms have garnered as much hype and anticipation as Sherlock: The Official Live Game did when it was first announced in June 2018. While a large part of this had to do with the country's collective love of the BBC series, with nearly 10 million people tuning into the show's final three episodes, escape room enthusiasts had even more reason to be excited... It was the follow-up to TimeRun. Running from April 2015 for three years in London Fields, TimeRun was widely regarded as the best escape room in London. Created and designed by Nick Moran (now best known for Phantom Peak) and Dean Rogers (who had previously helped launch The Crystal Maze Live Experience), it raised the bar for what escape rooms could be at the time and was praised for its lavish sets and theming, engaging story, and innovative puzzles. Naturally, the big question leading up to the launch of the TimeRun team's new project - then known as Sherlock: The Game Is Now - was whether it could live up to its predecessor. With a script penned by Steven Moffat, Mark Gattis, and Nick Moran, and original video/audio content from the cast of the BBC series, including Martin Freeman, Mark Gattis, Andrew Scott, Louise Brealey, and Benedict Cumberbatch, it was clear that Sherlock: The Official Live Game was aiming to be as close to a blockbuster as an escape room could get. Photo: Nic Crilly-Hargrave The overall experience of Sherlock: The Official Live Game has immersive theatre elements in the lead-up to its main escape room section, and draws visitors into the story immediately upon arriving at the venue. Tucked away at the back of Shepherd Bush's W12 Shopping Centre, the venue's exterior is designed to resemble an opticians office. There are walls lined with dozens of glasses, staff in white lab coats (all called Stamford), and posters advertising the businesses' services - it’s so convincing unsuspecting passersby may mistake it for a real store. To enter, visitors buzz an intercom and provide a coded message. Unlike most other escape rooms in London, which introduce visitors to the stories world verbally during a pre-experience briefing, Sherlock: The Official Live Game immerses them from the very start with this environment, signalling that this is an escape room that's gone above and beyond the norm. The story of Sherlock: The Official Live Game has guests take on the role of new recruits at The Network, a fictional organisation headed up by Mycroft Holmes. With Sherlock out of the country, they are drafted in to help with an investigation as part of an assessment before being assigned official roles within the organisation. After a health and safety briefing delivered in-character via a pre-recorded video by John Watson (Martin Freeman), guests leave the optician's and enter a recreation of 221B Baker Street - the home of Sherlock. They're invited to look around the flat at their leisure before disaster strikes, and Moriarty (Andrew Scott) delivers a message from beyond the grave. With Mycroft having been kidnapped, a call from Sherlock instructs guests to follow Moriarty's instructions while he devises a solution, kicking off the escape room portion of the experience. There’s some neat practical effects at use in this room, which again elevates the pre-show experience above the norm. Overall the extended pre-show, which also includes a photo opportunity within the flat, does a solid job of setting up the main storyline for the experience. Visitors understand the story and stakes of the escape room before stepping into the room, and seeing familiar characters appear on screen - speaking directly to the audience - is a thrill for fans of the BBC series, who will relish the chance to dive back into the world years after the show’s conclusion. Photo: Nic Crilly-Hargrave The game's first room, which is set inside a lab at St. Barts Hospital, offers players their best opportunity to 'become' Sherlock. A dead body lies in the centre of the room, covered by a sheet. Its face and body are largely obscured, and guests need to make a series of deductions about the person based on what little clues are available, including their occupation, marital status, and where their body was discovered. Other puzzles in this first room rely mainly on logical or lateral thinking, which matches the hospital setting. Subsequent rooms include the office of the currently missing Mycroft Holmes, which continues the need for lateral thinking and teamwork, and the Holborn Operating Theatre Museum, where the game reaches its climax. In this final room, the puzzles shift from mental to physical, requiring patience and dexterity, which can be challenging as the clock ticks down to its final moments. The difficulty of each room increases as groups progress, with the last room being far and away the toughest to complete. There’s also an added layer of tension for players as they enter the final room as there’s no clock or indication of how long they have left before their allotted hour is up anywhere in the experience. When it comes to the in-world audio and video content from the cast, Andrew Scott’s performance as Moriarty is the clear highlight. His intense portrayal of the series antagonist ramps up the urgency to solve each puzzle quickly, especially in the final room. Unfortunately, Benedict Cumberbatch's contribution is limited to audio only, which may disappoint fans expecting more from the experience's titular character. After saving the world and freeing Mycroft (if all the puzzles are completed in time..), guests are welcome to visit the venue's other main attraction, The Mind Palace bar. With an impressively large drinks menu and additional experiences on offer, including Afternoon Tea and The Poisoned Chalice—an immersive cocktail experience that sees guests solving a test set by Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s right-hand man—it's a well-themed venue to debrief after completing the main experience. The Poisoned Chalice Cocktail Experience. Photo: Nic Crilly-Hargrave So does Sherlock: The Official Live Game manage to live up to TimeRun? It's a close one. It's certainly one of the best escape rooms we've done in London, and the high production values make it the city's must-try experience for enthusiasts and fans of the series. Compared to other escape rooms in London, it goes above and beyond with its extended pre-show and the addition of an on-site bar elevates it from a brisk 60-minute experience to something you could spend the better half of an afternoon experiencing. 7.5/10 Sherlock: The Official Live Game runs at Doyle's Opticians in Shepherds Bush daily. Tickets start at £44 per person, and can be booked via thegameisnow.com

Amber Jarman-Crainey has announced her latest immersive theatre production, BOUND, will be premiering on the 24th August 2024 at Bargehouse on South Bank. BOUND encourages people to process, explore, and reflect upon their grief through a multi-sensory experience. Photo: Rachel Patrice Fallon B O U N D gives you the opportunity to step into the heart of the story and discover your own pathway through the production, whilst immersing yourself in nine stories developed from real examples of grief and loss shared through movement, live music, theatre and art. Amber started to create BOUND as an outlet for her own grief after losing her older brother in 2020. Her interest in movement and performance has always focused on human behaviour and memory, which is reflected in the curation of BOUND through the set, storylines and score. She's also been working with a small team of specialists to build the work, including industry-leading performers, grief specialists, doctors, charities and artists. Photo: Rachel Patrice Fallon The aim is to create a space where the audience has the power to lead their own journey and view what they feel interested in or connected to. The show is spread over five floors of Bargehouse, which will be home to nine storylines told by eight physical theatre performers. The cast for BOUND includes Lucija Bozicevic, Rosalia Panepinto, Vinicius Salles, Dominic Coffey, Adrienne Ming, Angela Smith, Lee Clayden, and Julian Nichols. Photo: Rachel Patrice Fallon Each story has been developed from either the performer's experience or an interest in the concept. Movement has been inspired by physical and emotional reactions to grief, with the key storylines found in BOUND being Living Grief, Shelter, Gaslight, Rooted Love, Therapy, Mourning Meadow, Time, and Subconscious Mind. Each room within Bargehouse has been designed to give the audience the chance to engage with a tactile space. As the audience ventures through the building, they will find, for example, a wild meadow, twisted willow structures, draping, and installations. Filling the space will be an original score created by composer and musician Ann Warren. Amber and Ann have worked together on previous projects, including the award-winning short film 'Clamber.' The audience will move in and out of the sound until reaching the top floor, where the audience will be immersed in cello music played live by Madeline Napier. Photo: Rachel Patrice Fallon BOUND is gifting a limited number of free tickets to students who are 16+ and studying an area that connects to B O U N D and Licensed Therapists who are considering alternative ways to support clients in processing grief and loss. Amber Jarman-Crainey recently spoke to Katy Naylor at voidspace about the show. Click here to read that interview and find out more about the show. BOUND runs at Bargehouse, near Blackfriars station, from 25th August - 8th September. Tickets start at £11.55 for students and £15.87 for general admission. To book and find out more, visit coinstreet.org

Piers' life hasn't quite worked out as he hoped. Deflated by his prospects after graduating university, he's taken a job as a temp, teaching a lesson on community values to those looking for work. While desperately trying to impress the sea of faces sat in front of him, he calls upon a man in the audience, absent-mindedly doodling on a notepad. Without knowing it, he's just kicked off a chain of events that will shape the rest of his life. This is the starting point for My Plan For Tomorrow , the latest semi-immersive show from Spare The Rod, a theatre group founded in 2018 by George Abbott and Alfie Lanham Brown. The show previously enjoyed a sold-out run at the Pen Theatre and returns now at the Golden Goose Theatre in Camberwell following further development based on audience feedback and a crowdfunding campaign. Photo: Rachel Burnham Exploring themes of masculinity, personal accountability, success, and failure, My Plan For Tomorrow  follows Piers (Alfie Lanham-Brown) through several decades of his life. From the seminar he's reluctantly teaching to a chance encounter at a comic book convention years later, and finally at a work-mandated therapy session, we see him repeatably struggle to accept the reality that his life didn't turn out how he hoped. Written by George Abbott, the text is at times engaging and thought-provoking, especially when commenting on topics such as class inequality and substance abuse. Dominic Daniel's portrayal of Ian carries particular weight in the second half, despite the narrative becoming somewhat muddled. By the show's conclusion, it is unclear exactly what the show is trying to tell us, and a bizarre conclusion appears out of nowhere, leaving the audience unsure whether to clap and leave the venue or wait for another scene to begin. Photo: Rachel Burnham In terms of immersion, My Plan For Tomorrow  has a novel approach for the audience is treated and integrated into the show. While they're seated throughout and have no real interaction with the cast, they are technically playing the collective role of observers - from the group of prospective jobseekers to the patiently waiting crowd at a convention, they're a constant presence in all three scenes, and their silence is acknowledged throughout by the cast. Photo: Rachel Burnham Whether intentional or not, it's a rough position for a show to be putting its audience in - they're forced to reconcile with the fact that despite repeated on-stage cries for them to engage, their role is to ultimately keep quiet and just observe. When audience members do attempt to meaningfully respond, they're glossed over, even when they're done so at the request of the characters. Equally, when the audience doesn't respond to these requests, the silence is weaponised against them, implying they should in fact be engaging. Overall, My Plan For Tomorrow  is at times a thought-provoking and engaging production that delves into complex themes of personal and societal struggles. While its innovative approach to audience engagement is commendable, the execution will likely leave audiences wishing it was clearer exactly what their role was meant to be from the outset. ★★★ My Plan For Tomorrow is running at the Golden Goose Theatre in Camberwell until 3rd August. To find out more about the show, and to book tickets, visit goldengoosetheatre.co.uk

An exclusive look inside Phantom Peak's latest summer offering, Starlit Summer. With 10 brand new trails on offer as well as the introduction of the Cabin Games, the long-running immersive experience has never been better. Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Photo: Alistair Veryard Phantom Peak's Starlit Summer runs until 15th September 2024 in Canada Water. To find out more about the show and to book tickets, visit phantompeak.com

In the spoiler-heavy second half of our interview with writer/director Jack Aldisert, we dissect the key moments in The Manikins: a work in progress. Photo: Marc Tsang This interview contains major spoilers for The Manikins: a work in progress.   Immersive Rumours: So Jack, let's dive into specifics about some of the big moments in The Manikins. After entering the venue, there's a pre-show briefing in which you explain to participants that if things get too much for them, they can loudly say 'I want the show to stop'. You're planting a seed for later in the show where people need to say that phrase as part of the narrative. It's a really interesting subversion of the typical immersive theatre rules... Jack Aldisert: It goes back to what I was saying earlier when I was talking about Ligotti and layers of reality and incorporating the participant's reality into the piece as one of many. I think a very effective way to do that is through conventions and the subversion of conventions. A convention is something which is totally expected to the degree that it disappears into the background. For example, when you go to the theatre, you expect that there's a bar, you have drinks at the bar, there's a bell that rings, you go into the auditorium, you sit at your seat, you're chatting with whoever you came with, lights go down, the crowd hushes. Everyone knows to do all those things. There are these framing devices like the curtain opening, which are conventions that signal the shifting frames of the show. Because they are conventions, they disappear into the background. There's nothing realer than that because it's totally unquestioned. Every time we subvert conventions, it's like we're grabbing a chunk of the participant's experience of reality and putting it into the fiction or revealing to them that it was always part of the fiction. That's powerful because it takes something so real that you never would have thought to question it and makes you realise it was part of a fictional scheme or fictional framework. [The 'I want the show to stop' line] was always part of the show, but as something real - we didn't subvert it. It was there in case they wanted it to happen as an actual safe phrase - which it still is. People still could use it like that, even after it gets subverted. It's those things that I think make the piece powerful because that's what helps the piece eat your reality. There's a fantastic book by Bert O. States, Great Reckonings in Little Rooms: On the Phenomenology of Theatre. There's a section where he says something like 'The history of theatre, especially when it comes to its avant-garde development can largely be characterised as a gradual colonisation or appropriation of reality.' He argues that all of the most avant-garde theatre in its day has been avant-garde and gotten its power from how it takes something real and uses it within its fictional or theatrical framework in an unexpected novel way. That's what I think we're trying to do with this, incorporating reality into the piece in a novel way. Photo: Rebecca J. Windsor. There's a question that gets repeated a lot by the characters to the participant or to each other - 'Who are you?'. One of the things I love most is when the participant gets asked that and they say 'I don't know anymore'. That tells you it's working. IR: Another element of the show that I think is incredibly interesting, and it's something we mentioned in our review , is that the participant ends up playing as much of a role in the experience as the two actors. They start as a version of themselves, then they're playing a version of that performance's actress, at one point they're the Doctor, then they're playing a version of you as the Director amongst several other roles. It's a really effective way of having people lose their sense of self during the show. Jack: Yeah, it's another attempt to transfer a literary technique or concept from weird fiction into a theatrical medium. Something that's classic weird fiction is that it's not just your sense of reality that gets subverted and altered, it's your sense of identity. Often there's a theme in weird fiction of an interchangeable and permeable sense of identity where the characters don't know who's who anymore. They get exchanged with each other. There are a couple of really useful qualities of theatre that can harness a sense of shifting and permeable identity. Something else that States talks about, when you're watching the theatre, you're inherently watching two worlds at once. You're watching the world of Hamlet and the world of Olivier. You're seeing both simultaneously. They oscillate between each other. He talks about how great actors are the ones who are able to use themselves in the performance to make the performance of the character even stronger. The idea is to put the participant in this situation, which goes back to the identity crisis that Sophie Nield talks about. The identity crisis is what happens when you take that Hamlet/Olivier split off of a stage, which a more traditional audience is watching, and you put that dichotomy into a conversational interaction with an audience member. We try to fuel that intentionally by having the participant be asked to play multiple roles, which is again just a convention of theatre - the actor playing a character becomes something that makes you feel like your identity is shifting. One of my favourite moments is near the end of the show, there's a question that gets repeated a lot by the characters to the participant or to each other - 'Who are you?'. One of the things I love most is when the participant gets asked that and they say 'I don't know', or 'I don't know who I'm supposed to be anymore'. That tells you it's working. That's what I want them to feel like. I don't know exactly what, but I think this piece is doing something around identity essentialism . You take a person and maybe they construct their identity based around a certain set of characteristics or they say 'My identity is essential to who I am. These certain identifiable traits about me are essential to who I am', and the experience that you go through in this show isn't that. At the end of the day, you might find yourself playing five different roles. You see other people playing you and anyone can play anything in the show. It's not just the role you're playing that changes, it's what that makes you feel about your identity changing. Photo: Rebecca J. Windsor I don't think of this piece as something I've made, I think of it as an activity that I do with whoever else is involved in it that day. IR: This is quite a big statement, but The Manikins is the closest I've ever come to having a life-changing experience from a piece of theatre. In the realest sense possible, I felt like a different version of myself when I walked back out that door, and the old version of me was left behind. It's an incredibly powerful thing. Jack: Fantastic. You can't ask for anything more as a creator. A friend and I talked a couple of years ago about who theatre is for. We were talking about how in both of our experiences, theatre really is for the actors. You're giving a performance to the audience. but in my mind, the core of the magical transcendent experience of theatre is the experience of being an actor playing a role in this suspension of disbelief and the feeling that you get from the experience of leaving yourself in a way. Finding a different version of yourself feels like the transcendent part of theatre. What we talked about was that one of the great potentials of interactive theatre would be to give that experience to an audience member who doesn't have to have any experience as an actor or in doing immersive or interactive work. Giving that experience of what it feels like to be an actor in a role to someone who hasn't had that before and doing it in a way that we support them, the process of them becoming that is part of the storyline of the piece. That's why at the very beginning I explicitly say, 'I want you to feel like you're inside the story, but without you having to act. I don't need you to pretend to be someone else, just somewhere else.' The whole thing is telling them at the start, you don't need to be an actor, you don't have to act. Of course, by the end of it, they've been acting their asses off. Most of the time without even knowing it, without even noticing it. One of my favourite moments in the piece is the scene where they become the doctor and they're interviewing me, where I'm playing probably the closest version to myself of any other point in the show. The vast majority of people, even people who characterise as very passive participants in that scene, do lead and do push the scene forward. I'm thinking in my head as it's happening 'Wow, this person must have acting experience. This is a fantastic performance'. Then you talk to them at the end, and they've never acted in their life. We had one person the other day who just stared at me in that scene. I thought she was trying to make a power play or make a choice in the scene, in the way that an actor would make a choice in a scene. It turned out she was just really nervous and she didn't know what to say. She was trying to put on a veneer of confidence and wait for me to say something. I do think people get to experience what it feels like to have that sort of transcendent stage-acting experience through this. I don't want to sound like I'm talking myself up because I don't think about it that way at all. A piece of work is something you find rather than something you make - you find it. I don't think of this piece as something I've made, I think of it as an activity that I do with whoever else is involved in it that day. Photo: Rebecca J. Windsor IR: The 'intermission' interview that happens after passing through the curtain a couple of times I imagine catches people off-guard. It feels like a break from what is going on, but in the five minutes between the end of that conversation and the recreation of that conversation after taking off the headphones, for me was the moment where everything clicked into place. In the first couple of scenes, answering questions as either myself or Serena [the actress performing during our show], you're still trying to find your footing and work out exactly what is happening, but haven't yet dived into the dream space. It's a pivotal scene. Jack: Exactly. I talked earlier about the turning point for me in terms of the creation process was when I had that realisation - the meta stuff from the dream. I'd been asking people questions like that during the workshops, so the interview really just came out of the idea I had for that turning point scene where the actor is playing you. I had that idea and we just needed something to set that up, so we do a false intermission interview, which is why the show needs to still be referred to as a work in progress in the marketing, because it justifies the existence of that intermission. The main idea there goes back to when I first wanted to have a naturalistic office - you take off the headphones and eye mask and you're in a completely new space. What was exciting about that was you're now in a world of unlimited dream-like possibility, and it's undisputed - the situation just makes you inherently know that you're in that world of open possibility now, where it's like a dream and anything could happen. That's the feeling I wanted to give them. It came from when you're in a dream, and you can see someone in the dream, for example a figure that you know is your mother. She doesn't look like her, but you know that that person, despite their appearance in the dream, is who you think it is. That scene you're talking about is in my mind, a way to take that experience, which seems like it's only possible in a dream, and give it to the participant, They know, suddenly in that moment, without us having to say what's happening, they are having an out of body moment, where they're seeing someone else being them. Then we come over to them, and we ask them for director's notes, and they realise that they've become the director. No one has to ever acknowledge that in the scene, we don't have to hand you a script that tells you, we don't have to tell you what the situation is. We've set it up with quite a lot of logical plotting and planting of details so that in the moment of payoff, it feels like you're feeling the truth of that situation in the way that you feel the truth of something in a dream. Most people say that that's their favourite scene, and I know for a lot of the actors who play the Secretary, that's their favourite scene to play. It's really, really fun. Most people keep their directing notes to us very simple, or they don't know what to say at all. It can be very fun sometimes when people give us some wild ones. It's the turning point of the show because it signals that you've now entered the place where anything is possible, as in a dream. I think it also signals to people as a device that they have more agency and more room to improvise than they previously realised. Everything that comes after that is set up to be as open as we can make it in order to encourage them to use that agency. Photo: Marc Tsang IR: Speaking of agency, there's a moment that comes towards the end of the show where the participant has complete freedom in how to proceed. Is there a scenario in which people can break the show by doing nothing? I certainly found the number of possibilities in that moment a bit overwhelming. Jack: The only way that someone could break it is if they did something harmful or dangerous or sat in a corner and just kept going like, "La, la, la, la, la, la, la," and wouldn't engage. The only way to break it is act entirely outside of the framework we've created. But we've created an extremely broad framework so someone would have to do something not okay to break it or they'd have to refuse to engage entirely. Besides that, one of the backing devices that makes the whole second half work is that if something happens that's just too difficult for us to control, we can snap out of the show instantly and we can snap into our capacities as actor and director and we can dictate what's going to happen next, which we haven't had to do for that reason ever. I feel very secure in knowing that that's a possibility. IR: Do you think people would accept that as being a break from what's going on or do you think people would just assume it's another layer of the show? Jack: Depends on how we played it. It could be either of them for us too. We could use that however we wanted to. The last resort if something goes really wrong or if the participant is feeling really uncomfortable, they need out. You've set up this device where the actor and the director themselves are also part of the show and fictional characters as well. So to bypass that, the easiest way to do it, the final resort is to go outside, leave the venue, remove costume pieces, go outside and just be very clear that it's over or you're out of it and that I can either talk you down from here or I can just step away, go back inside and leave you to it. We've never had to do that. There are things you can do to prove that it's true. Parts of the show are wanting to give the participant the experience of reality that I have sometimes had in my life. The way that reality seems to me a lot of the time is it's dark, it's chaotic. There are a million and one things that you could choose to do with your life or with your day or with your hour. There is no ultimate authority that is going to be able to tell you which of those is right. You just have to do something because otherwise you rot. I wanted to take that experience of things and put it into a piece of theatre so that the participant could feel a heightened and metaphorical version of that experience for the last 15 minutes of the show. They feel like a tightened version of 'Wow, there are so many possibilities. There are all these figures around who are confusing, but they're telling me that they know what to do. They're telling me that they have it figured out. They have the right way to do it. They have the path that needs to be followed but there's nothing that's going to tell me which of them I should trust'. There's also the possibility of making my own path, but then I'm confronted with infinite options, and that's just as crushing. Do I follow the path that either one of these two characters is laying out for me? Or do I try to do something myself? Or do I just sit here and wait for someone to figure it out for me? Either of those options should feel equally daunting I think. --- For further discussion with Jack Aldisert on The Manikins: a work in progress and immersive theatre, check out voidspace's interview on voidspacezine.com The Manikins: a work in progress ran at Parabolic Theatre's Crypt in Bethnal Green from 3rd June to 13th July 2024. Visit themanikins.com  to find out more about the show. Deadweight Theatre is currently crowdsourcing funding to bring the show to a new London venue this August and send the show to Gothenburg Fringe in September. To support them, visit crowdfunder.co.uk/the-manikins

Following on from our five-star review of The Manikins: a work in progress, we sat down with writer/director Jack Aldisert to discuss the show’s inspiration, development, and why there will never truly be a final version of the script. Our interview with Jack Aldisert has been split into two parts. The first half is below, while the second half, which contains spoilers for the show's major plot points, will be released in the coming weeks. Keep an eye on ImmersiveRumours.com for the conclusion of our discussion. Photo: Marc Tsang This interview contains reference to several moments within The Manikins: a work in progress.   We would recommend those with tickets to attend avoid reading until after their visit. Immersive Rumours: Hi Jack. Thanks for speaking to us today. We're currently sat in Crypt where The Manikins: a work in progress is being performed, and to be honest with you, it's a disconcerting feeling to be back here after experiencing the show for ourselves. How have the last few weeks of performances been and what has the audience reaction been like? Jack Aldisert: Everyone's really loved it. It's been really nice, especially because with the way the show works you're immediately talking to them about it at the end. It’s been a relief that everyone has loved it so far, and to not have been in a close quarters situation talking to them afterwards and they're not satisfied.  In terms of reactions and what people take away from it, the show's so open to interpretation. There have been a few people who have taken away what I feel like I would take away from it, which is a sense of being totally overwhelmed by choice and possibility and having to make a decision amongst chaos. That’s the feeling I wanted to give people - total unreality and chaos and the idea of having to choose the right path forward when there are many paths and no one will tell you which one is right. You have to figure out what to do.  I think when I feel most satisfied at the end of a show is when the person feels like they don't know what's real anymore and they feel like their own reality has been fully enmeshed with the visions of reality that the show presents. IR: You've previously cited several writers of weird fiction for the inspiration behind the show. Can you tell us about how you came across this kind of work and the impact it had on the show's creation? Jack: I was reading a lot of the philosopher theorist Mark Fisher, he has mostly written political and cultural theory, but he has one book called The Weird and the Eerie. In that book, he dives deeply into the genre of weird fiction. He referenced so many different pieces of media in that book, and it was my first time hearing about weird fiction as a genre. Jeff and Ann VanderMeer have an edited volume called The Weird and in it, he references Thomas Ligotti, who I'd never heard of and calls him something like an ‘undisputed modern master of the weird’.. He's one of the handful of authors who have gotten a Penguin Classics collection of their books while they were still alive - it's a huge deal, but I'd never heard of him, and he's so obscure, no one knows who he is. He has this style of writing that is like nothing else I've ever read. It's this crazy mix of Edgar Allan Poe-style Baroque prose mixed with super modernist experimental writing and metafiction like [Jorge Luis] Borges or [Vladimir] Nabokov. He creates these stories where a character experiences a breakdown in reality and where their reality is invaded by other horrific realities - the seemingly unreal. He uses metafictional devices to make the reader feel like their own reality is being pulled into that. For example, he has this fantastic story called Notes on the Writing of Horror: a story. It’s written as an essay about how to write horror, but then it turns into a horror story, the centre of which is the writer of the essay. That inspired the title of the show as well - The Manikins: a work in progress.  As I was reading those stories, I just kept thinking that the thing he's trying to do here in a literary form of using metafiction is to reach out and pull you into it. In interactive theatre, you can actually do that. You could take some of the techniques that he uses in a literary form and actualise them, making it so that they are actually happening to the audience member.  If it's done right - a piece of immersive theatre can take the audience member's own sense of reality and make it one of those layers within the fiction. That is a success to me when the participant feels like their reality has just become one of the many layers of reality that are part of the show. Photo: Rebecca J. Windsor. IR: Can you talk us through your experience of studying at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and how The Manikins first began as part of your time there?  Jack: At the end of lockdown I was trying to choose between two Master's programmes. One was at Royal Holloway, and the other course was at Central. The course at Central is all about experimental devising, collaborative work and avant-garde stuff. It was a really, really difficult choice, but I’d had a lot of ideas about immersive and interactive theatre that I wanted to explore, so in the end that's why I chose the Central programme - I knew I would be allowed to experiment with that stuff. They encourage everybody in the last few months of the first year, to form companies on the course and then create a piece together - that's how Deadweight Theatre formed. The second year of the MFA I did was an independent project where you could really do anything you wanted, which is when I decided to do The Manikins. Really it was my MFA project, and you have to frame it as a research question, really. IR: What was the research question? Jack: Well, the thing I kept running into with immersive theatre was audience participation. In interactive work, there's always this level of disconnection because of the layer of artifice of characters being played. If you're an audience member and you're interacting with an actor who's in character, there's always a level of, for lack of a better word, embarrassment and confusion in the situation. A big part of that is that you've got a large group of people, usually other audience members, watching you interact. This factor of being perceived by a group of people is going to limit what you're comfortable doing in the interaction.  Let's say there’s a wizard, I know when I'm talking to this wizard that the actor playing them sees me as an audience member who's come to the show. I don't know who the wizard sees me as, standing here in my modern clothes with a weird name suddenly appearing in this environment. It creates this two-directional pull - do I respond as a character that I'm somehow making up on the spot right now?, or do I respond as myself, which doesn't make sense because it sort of breaks the world? That plus the factor of being watched felt like the barriers to truly immersive interaction in my mind. So my research question - which I thought was an impossible question - was about overcoming those barriers. It was about how to create a method for writing, rehearsing, and performing scene work in which one of the scene partners is inherently totally unpredictable because they're an audience member. Those were the questions I was trying to approach and The Manikins formed around answering those questions. IR: When you began to explore if you could break down those barriers, what were you drawing from to begin with, and how did that help the development of the show? Jack: There's a fantastic essay by academic and author Sophie Nield , who I believe is at Royal Holloway, that's from when Punchdrunk was first doing their masked shows. She talks about that quote-unquote identity crisis that's created in the situation I described. It's a fantastic essay. The masks that Punchdrunk use - that's one solution to that problem. If the rest of the audience is masked and you're masked, the embarrassment factor goes way down. I thought, okay, how do we create a controlled environment to study that effect? Well, just get rid of the rest of the audience entirely so it's just the one participant. Remove the being watched by an audience factor entirely. Initially, I was using sources like the Ligotti stories, which are about the breakdown of reality and the breakdown of identity as content for the experiments we did as we were devising together in the room, workshopping stuff. I took a month off from the work, and during that time I had this dream. I woke up from it with a realisation - the way that you get around the identity crisis isn't by eliminating it, it's by incorporating it. You take the identity crisis inherent in immersive and interactive theatre, and you make it the core of the dramaturgy of the piece. You make the piece about the participant experiencing that identity crisis and you build the piece around that. Before that, I’d been trying to eliminate the problems. When I had this realisation about the identity crisis, it was that when we’d been testing the early fragments of the show, I had naturally found myself talking to people about the piece. 'Here's what we're trying to do. Here's my goal with the piece. This is what we're working on. This is what I'm hoping to get out of it.' At the end of what they were trying - which were the first scenes with the doctor and the secretary - I would ask them questions about how it was going.  I realised that the extra meta layer I'd been saying to participants to frame the show had to be part of the show, and we use that as a device to heighten the audience's experience of the identity crisis, which will now be the core of the piece. That was the moment everything came together. From that point on, it just felt like a refinement process. Photo: Rebecca J. Windsor. IR: How different is the version of the show that existed when you were at Central to the version running now at Crypt? Jack: There's been three significant versions of the show. The first one I did as the culmination of the programme in May of last year - I didn't think there would be a life for the show beyond Central, but we got such encouraging feedback. I thought 'Okay, let's keep going with this'. One of the tutors from Central who saw that show in May very kindly offered us a space to do the show at Central for five participants over two days in November, alongside me teaching a workshop to that Master's program on making interactive work.  When you're more deeply into the dream space, that has been very different each time we've done the show, but it has always ended in the spotlight in one way or another. It’s so hard to take plot threads in a show like this and tie them together effectively. All of the changes have really been about how do we make the experience more exciting and trippier for the audience member in the second half of the show, and also do that in a way that makes sense dramaturgically to tie any possible narrative threads together. I worked extensively with a couple of great dramaturgs , Harley Winzenried and Audrey Regan, over the first few months of this year leading up to the Crypt run to improve the text.  IR: Do you think this version of the show is the final one, or are there still things that you would like to try and tweak as time goes on?  Jack: I’ve got two answers to that. The first answer is that it's almost the final version... We've been tweaking it a little bit even as we've been running it so far in Crypt. I think there's still room for improvements in the finale section, and also in the section that comes afterwards when we're talking to the participant about the show. The second answer is, once you get into the dream zone, anything can really happen. There are so many exciting things we could pursue, and actually several of the most important and exciting moments in the second half of the show came from improvs that we did because of an unexpected audience choice in an earlier version of the show, which I then incorporated into the text.  We had one participant, back when there was still a physical mannequin in the show, take the lab coat off the mannequin, put it on, and then enter the next scene as the doctor. That resulted in us doing three scenes in a row that were completely made up, including one of my favourite moments, which is when there were two doctors confronting each other, trying to figure out who was the real one. I was then looking for a way to incorporate that moment because I thought it was so much fun. The show can never really be 100% completed because there's always going to be the possibility that an audience member will do something so interesting that we then want to use it.  When I was first thinking about what kind of immersive theatre I would like to make, I was reading a lot of books on dramaturgy and narrative structure in media. I was looking into classical music structure and at the idea of a cadenza in a classical concerto - where the music in the concerto is written and you're playing it note for note, but then there's a blank section of two minutes or so where the soloist plays a full improvisation, which is incorporated into the non-improvised structure of the piece. I got really into the idea of 'How do you do a cadenza in an immersive theatre piece?' and that's what I'm trying to approach with the finale. Photo: Rebecca J. Windsor. Those are the most powerful and exciting moments for me as a performer - when it feels like the performers and the participants are equally together in what's happening and are equally inside the dream space that's been created.  IR: Has performing a show that plays with reality and dreams so much affected you and the other cast members as you’ve been performing it? Jack: Yeah. You totally slip into the headspace of the show. I've had moments where I'm playing myself or I'm playing the doctor, and I'm legitimately feeling like I'm in a dream. Because the last couple scenes of the show are so open to the audience member doing, trying, saying anything, some people stay really passive in that situation and some people try some crazy stuff. We had a situation the other day, where we had a participant try something really different. We were in a situation we'd never been in before, I was playing the scene, and then the show stopped and I felt very confused, very overwhelmed, and when it stopped I felt like it was still happening. I said to the other actor and the participant after the show, 'Wow, I just had the participants experience for like a good five minutes'. I was feeling what the participant must be feeling during that section of the show normally. The show, I think, has that element of a spell being cast, and there have been certain situations where the spell gets cast on the casters as well. Everybody gets pulled into this dream together, and those are the most powerful and exciting moments for me as a performer - when it feels like the performers and the participants are equally together in what's happening and are equally inside the dream space that's been created.  Photo: Marc Tsang IR: We need to ask you about the set design for the show. It's basically made up of a curtain and two sets of chairs. Did it go through several different iterations during its development before you landed on this design? Jack: We’ve tried to free it entirely from naturalism. A big part of the development process has been working with the designers and collaborators to rid the show of set pieces, props, anything that was a direct, mimetic, naturalistic representation of reality so that the participant is fully creating the whole world in their own mind as they go along with it. The possibilities are limitless when you approach it that way.  It was a hilarious process with the scenographer, Min Feng, who's an incredible designer. We started off looking at making walls and doors and an office. Each time I'd meet with her, we ended up taking something else out. This is definitely the best version of the set. It's so simple, it leaves everything else to the imagination. It's just light, darkness, and the curtain. I also think that the red curtain is very powerful as a symbol. It's great because it's in the space as a symbol of theatre, and the imagination element of theatre. It also provides the very satisfying action of parting the curtain and passing through it as a threshold - it's sort of a palate cleanser. Each time you go through it, it’s as if we have 30 different rooms that you're going into when really it's just one room. The curtain makes it feel like you're imagining a whole new space each time you pass through it. Even if we got a bunch of money all of a sudden, we would just stick with that one single red curtain hanging in the space. IR: We’re in a venue run by Parabolic Theatre. Similarly to The Manikins, Crypt hosted another immersive show last year that was born out of someone's studies - Bacchanalia by Sleepwalk Immersive. How has it been working with them on this run of the show? Jack: I can't speak highly enough of Parabolic, they're awesome. Everyone on the team is just the nicest people ever. When we did the show a year ago, Danny Romeo, who now writes on Phantom Peak, saw an early workshop version of The Manikins. He introduced me to Tom Black, who was an awesome participant and did some really fun stuff. He loved the show and ended up putting me in touch with Owen [Kingston, Artistic Director of Parabolic Theatre] in the fall. At the time, I had been extremely frustrated by trying to find a space to perform in that was affordable or to get someone to program us.  When Owen said he was interested, I was expecting maybe like a week or two at best. We talked and he ended up offering us six weeks. That was the exact opportunity that we needed. There is literally no one else in London or as far as I know, in the UK, who would have made us that offer off the strength of a script and off the strength of his colleague having seen the show. It was such a rare and brilliant opportunity, and I'm totally indebted to them. Beth Atkinson - who is part of their team - has been stage managing the show and she's been brilliant. She's made the show so much better and more efficient by working on it. IR: We mentioned in our review that a logical comparison for people to have made when the show was first announced was with Punchdrunk. In reality, the only thing the two shows really share is 1:1 interactions. Was that comparison something you thought about when writing the show? Jack: It's an interesting one. The first Punchdrunk show that I saw was The Burnt City, and we were already well into the development of The Manikins. I've read a lot about Punchdrunk and their work, and I did finally manage to see Sleep No More when I was in New York last year, but that was also well after the show had been written. When I was still an undergrad, a mentor of mine who had worked on props at Sleep No More back in the day told me about Punchdrunk and Sleep No More. I'd heard of site-specific theatre, but I had never even heard of immersive theatre until I was probably 21/22. She told me about it and the concept just blew my mind. Then lockdown hit and I couldn't see any immersive theatre, so I had a couple of years where I was just imagining what it would be like, reading about it and imagining what is the potential, what would I want to do in that form. I knew that within Punchdrunk shows they had 1:1 interactions, and I also knew that that was what I was most interested in about what I understood about Punchdrunk. But I also knew that it was a very particular style of interaction in those 1:1s. I've only personally ever been in a single 1:1, but my understanding was that there wasn't that much room for the participant to structure the narrative in those moments or talk in those moments. In my mind, in drama and in theatre, it's the verbal argumentation that is the core of it.  I was interested in trying to take what I thought were some really exciting ideas in the Punchdrunk 1:1 scenes, especially the dream-like nature of it. That was something I've always been really interested in - using theatre to recreate a dream space and a dream mentality, and I think Punchdrunk does that so well. I was interested in how could you combine that with conversational interaction, because they on their face seem to be almost clashing with each other. It would be really difficult to create a dream-like interaction if you're talking and articulating yourself heavily. But I thought maybe it might be possible. The idea of The Manikins being like a 90-minute 1:1, I totally see that as a comparison. Of course, on a technical level, and in terms of what the experience feels like, is completely different. I've seen something that Katy [Naylor of voidspace ] has said about it in an interview where she was talking about the show being like the dream-like feeling of a Punchdrunk show or Punchdrunk 1:1 but with the facilitated space for full agency. --- Part 2 of our conversation with Jack Aldisert is available to read here . 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.

Argentinian performance troupe Fuerza Bruta return to Camden's Roundhouse after a decade-long absence for the European premiere of their latest show, AVEN. Immersive Rumours received complimentary tickets to this show and as such, are disclosing this information before  our review. The producers have had no input in the below and all thoughts are our own. Photo: Johan Persson Fuerza Bruta, the Argentinian institution that has performed in upwards of 37 countries for more than 6 million people since its inception, has a long-running history with Roundhouse. Following a refurbishment to the iconic North London venue in 2006, their debut show (which at the time shared a name with the company but has since been renamed Wayra ) re-opened the venue. At the time, it also held Roundhouse's record for fastest-selling performance. 2013 saw the show return for a month-long residency, where it continued to enjoy sold-out dates and strong word of mouth. It continued to tour internationally for years afterwards, but Fuerza Bruta knew a new show was on the horizon. Following the pandemic, the company's plans for that new show saw them " abandon any note of darkness and strife" to instead "create the happiest show we have ever done” according to director Diqui James. This is the European premiere of AVEN, a high-energy show that bills itself as a "celebration of adventure and paradise". Photo: Johan Persson After a pre-show DJ set from BRESH 's Luz Rodriguez, the immersive club-theatre experience begins with a huge inflatable globe zipping above the standing-room-only audience. Performers in pastel-coloured suits run across the surface as if their lives depend on it, causing it to rapidly spin on its axis. A water tank suspended in mid-air sees a woman slide and crash against the sides while their partner dangles below its glass floor, desperate to connect. Later, a performer hangs from a crane in the centre of the room and is pulled through the air at breakneck speed to ear-piercing whistles and cheers from the crowd. The show's finale sees a life-sized inflatable whale glide over the audience as it oscillates back and forth within touching distance of the outstretched arms below. While every scene of the show is radically different from the last, those who have seen their previous work will notice there are some ideas that the Fuerza Bruta team found too tempting to not revisit. Wayra's most iconic scene, in which a man sprinting on a treadmill crashes through walls and is riddled with bullets, gets an update here that's far more optimistic and joyful. Photo: Johan Persson Those attending will be craning their necks throughout the show's 70-minute duration as performers fly overhead, constantly shifting their attention from one side of the venue to the other as the action unfolds all around them. Anyone who finds themselves in the centre of the Roundhouse crowd for the conclusion of the show will likely leave soaked as water violently sprays from the ceiling, and being covered in confetti is practically guaranteed for everyone in the room. By design, the audience is in the midst of the action and as much a part of the show as the 14-strong pack of performers above them. For a lot of people, the closest comparison they'll have to a show like AVEN is Cirque du Soleil, with their annual Royal Albert Hall residencies. This however is an entirely different beast - from the pounding bass and gig-like atmosphere to the constantly shifting audience positions as set-pieces are wheeled out into the thick of the crowd, Fuerza Bruta's offering feels more like an over-the-top warehouse rave than a night at the theatre. Photo: Johan Persson There's nothing subtle or understated in AVEN; every moment is about being as big and bold as possible, which comes as little surprise considering the company's name translates to 'brute force'. An exercise in maximalist joy, attending AVEN is to be swept up in an uplifting experience unlike anything else playing in London this summer. Photos: Johan Persson ★★★★ Fuerza Bruta - AVEN runs at the Roundhouse in Camden from 9th July to 1st September 2024. Tickets start at £25 and can be purchased via roundhouse.org.uk For more reviews and coverage of immersive shows like Fuerza Bruta's AVEN, see below...

London's top immersive experience returns with another flawless season of mysteries and innovation in Canada Water. We head over the ridge to review Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Immersive Rumours received complimentary tickets to this show and as such, are disclosing this information before  our review. They have had no input in the below and all thoughts are our own. For London-based immersive theatre fans, it's often easy to take for granted just how good we have it. With an ever-growing list of immersive experiences on our doorstep, there's no better place in the world to experience the most innovative and groundbreaking immersive work. Nothing exemplifies this fact more than Phantom Peak - a mainstay of London's immersive scene since it first opened in 2022, that continues to be the most original and singular immersive experience in town. Photo: Alistair Veryard At this point, we're a broken record when it comes to Phantom Peak - since it first opened we've been screaming from the rooftops about how good it is with a string of five-star reviews. Their latest season - Festival of Innovation - continues to deliver everything guests have come to expect from Phantom Peak. With some of their strongest storylines yet and a host of new additions to the show's 30,000 sq foot site, it's an experience that continues to innovate and best itself, even after 18 months of constant updates. This season sees JONACO, the powerful organisation that has its fingerprints all over nearly every element of the town, introduce the Festival of Innovation - a World's Fair-style showcase of the latest and greatest inventions from Phantom Peak's townsfolks and tourists. Most of this season's new storylines involve these inventions in one way or another. For instance, the trail ’Nothing But The Truth’ revolves around ProstleBot - a robotic priest with boundless enthusiasm for spreading the gospel of the Cosmic Platypus, who has just found itself accused of murder - something you've asked to get to the bottom of by the towns resident priest, Pius. Photo: Alistair Veryard Elsewhere in Phantom Peak, there are storylines involving everything from pets that have escaped into other dimensions, sentient AI assistants, prehistoric creatures on the loose, creepy clowns, and a certain monster-based trading card game that's taken heavy influence from Pokemon. Often these storylines take inspiration from real-world pop culture. Previous season's trails have referenced everything from Scooby-Doo to Tomb Raider and Five Nights At Freddy's. We're now fast approaching 100 unique trails having been on offer since Phantom Peak first opened in 2022. While they've varied massively in subject matter over the last 18 months, the common thread that has been present throughout is their unpredictable nature. Rarely will you ever be able to accurately predict where any of the trails will lead you, and their constant twists and turns can soon turn a storyline about something as pedestrian as I.T. Support into a battle between humankind and demonic spirits. Photo: Alistair Veryard By design, Phantom Peak lets you take things entirely at your own pace - there are no big set-piece moments you can miss by being in the wrong part of the venue at the wrong time (something that is often the case with free-roaming immersive experiences like Secret Cinema or Punchdrunk's large scale shows), and the storylines are only moved forward by your actions as you interact with Phantom Peak's many townsfolk. If you want to take a break for half an hour to have some food and drink, the trail you'll have been doing is ready for you to pick up again whenever you are. For 2024, Phantom Peak's cocktail experience has been overhauled in the form of The Broken Chalise - a new actor-led experience at a set time during each performance. As part of the experience, guests need to complete a series of group tasks to the satisfaction of Leadbelly, the town's Health and Safety Officer, against the clock. With a mix of physical and mental tasks to complete, it's a fun activity for all group sizes, as well as those keen to dive a bit deeper into the ever-expanding lore of Phantom Peak. Photo: Alistair Veryard Considering the cocktails at Phantom Peak will run you anywhere from £9.50 to £11 each, and with an exclusive cocktail menu available only to those who participate in the experience, it's good value if you want to indulge in one of them anyway. For the avid Phantom Peak card collectors, there's also an exclusive trail card for those who take part in The Broken Chalice on top of the 10 regular trail cards handed out through the main storylines. Photo: Alistair Veryard The show's overarching story, which continues to develop season on season, sees some new developments also. The long-rumoured return of Phantom Peak's former Mayor Furbish is inching ever closer as they work behind the scenes to gain influence and control of the town against JONACO, while Jonas' long-term plans for the town see one of the townsfolk soon venturing into space as part of a classified, top-secret Operation. Photo: Alistair Veryard Phantom Peak's ability to continually deliver 10+ hours of new storylines every few months is nothing short of miraculous, and it's made all the more impressive by the fact that every season's trails somehow improve on the last. There isn't another immersive experience operating at the level that Phantom Peak is right now, and it's without a doubt the best experience on offer in a city that's already home to the best immersive work in the world. ★★★★★ Photos: Alistair Veryard Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation currently runs until 12th May 2024, though a closing date for this season has yet to be confirmed. You can book via phantompeak.com