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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.

Image: Minimum Labyrinth For over a decade, Robert Kingham and Rich Cochrane's Minimum Labyrinth have been hosting walking tours through London that explore the capital's rich history and lesser-known corners. With previous tours having delved into the past of areas including Drury Lane and Bloomsbury, the pair have built up a loyal following of fans, a regular cast of collaborators, and have previously worked with the likes of the Museum of London to shed light on the forgotten corners of the city. Their latest experience, Doin' The Lambeth Walk (Oi!), turns its attention, unsurprisingly, to Lambeth. It's their most ambitious production to date, featuring a cast of four performers, and it's as much a walking tour as it is a piece of utterly surreal promenade theatre. Over three hours, the tour covers several kilometres of tunnels, parks, estates and alleyways, as well as two pub stops for those who've both worked up a thirst and need time to process everything that unfolds. Photo: Immersive Rumours We're sworn to secrecy concerning a lot of the specifics in Doin' The Lambeth Walk, and wouldn't want to detract from the joy of discovering exactly what the tour involves for those who attend, but it's fair to say that it's a far richer experience than the dry, fact-heavy style of walking tour common elsewhere in the city, and is unlike anything else we've ever done. As expected, there are heaps of interesting titbits about the history of Lambeth throughout, including nods to Charlie Chaplin and Admiral William Blythe, whose pasts are both tied to the area. There are also numerous detours that explore everything from the 'dead railway' that ferried bodies between Waterloo and Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey to the cholera epidemic that plagued the area and killed nearly 2,000 people between 1848 and 1849. The focus shifts constantly between the buildings and the geographical features of Lambeth, and the people who made the area what it is, showing us how the two have impacted each other and how, ultimately, a place is made by those who inhabit it. On top of this, though, are the performative elements of Doin' The Lambeth Walk, which have been designed in a way that means those who attend are never quite sure what's going to happen next. There's a wonderfully bizarre overarching story woven into the walk's narrative that has nothing to do with the area's history, but frames every interaction the group has with the sights and sounds of Lambeth and before long, those who attend have seemingly stepped through the looking glass, unable to return to reality. With the streets of London also acting as the stage for this tour-cum-theatre experience, passers-by often look on, unsure of what they're witnessing, and the ever-present risk of the tour colliding with reality creates some wild interactions with the general public that heighten the show's surreal feeling. Photos: Immersive Rumours With some hilarious moments woven into the tour's script courtesy of Robert Kingham and Alice Merivale, who lead the experience, and with a host of characters played by Howard Horner and Will Henry popping up en route, every twist and turn on the tour's route holds the potential for another unexpected encounter. By the walk's conclusion, we'd grown quite comfortable stepping out of time with the rest of the city, and after returning to reality, we had a new appreciation for those who have made the city what it is. Oi! ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Doin' The Lambeth Walk takes place across Central London on selected dates in September 2025. Tickets are priced from £37.50 and can be purchased via minimumlabyrinth.org

This interactive experience, based on the multi-billion-dollar franchise, lets visitors get up close and personal with over a dozen dinosaurs from the Mesozoic Era. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc After a successful run at ExCel London in 2022, Jurassic World: The Experience returns to the capital in an updated form within NEON at Battersea Power Station. This walkthrough experience, which lasts between 45 and 55 minutes, is packed full of outstanding animatronics, offers endless photo opportunities, and lets visitors get up close and personal with a number of dinosaurs from across the Jurassic World series, including Blue (Jurassic World) and Bumpy (Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous). As someone who grew up visiting the Natural History Museum and marvelling at its T-Rex animatronic, which was also likely the first encounter with the size and ferocity of dinosaurs for countless children in the 1990s and 2000s, it's fair to say that the dinosaur-loving kids of today don't know how good they've got it... Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc The experience begins with a journey on the ferry to Isla Nublar, which features a slickly produced introductory video as in-ferry entertainment. The video explains that upon docking, guests will be welcomed into the world-class tourist destination as VIP guests and have been granted exclusive access to see parts of the park not usually open to the general public, including the Genetic Creation Lab and Raptor Training Facilities. There's a notable lack of familiar faces from the film series in this introductory video, which would have helped solidify the link between the experience and the multi-billion-dollar franchise, but in all honesty, no one is attending Jurassic World: The Experience to see a pre-recorded video of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard - they're here to see dinosaurs. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc After disembarking, visitors enter through the Jurassic World gates and find themselves immediately face-to-face with a number of the show's animatronic dinosaurs, including a family of Pachyrhinosaurus and a two-storey tall Brachiosaurus, whose head and neck sways back and forth above the foliage. The attention to detail in these animatronics, and all of the ones that follow, is truly impressive and stands alongside, if not exceeds, the quality you'd expect from any of the Universal theme parks' Jurassic-based offerings. While these dinosaurs are great to admire from afar, there are more up-close and personal interactions to be had with several baby dinosaurs, which are cradled in the arms of Park Rangers throughout the venue. With the dinosaurs on show rotating frequently, there's nearly always a baby pterodactyl or velociraptor on hand for photos and pets. With blinking eyes and heads that move in response to human touch, these puppets are full of life and deliver on the promise of the show being an interactive Jurassic World experience. For the children visiting, it's an instant draw, with groups of people quickly forming around them, but ample time and attention are given to every group that wishes to pet them, so there's no missing out. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc The first half of Jurassic World: The Experience, in which guests spend time around the herbivores, is completely free-roam and allows groups to explore at their own pace. Beside every large-scale animatronic, there are staff members dressed in Jurassic World Park Ranger uniforms, who are all incredibly friendly and happy to chat about the dinosaurs on show and take photos on your behalf without any upsell. Further into the experience, there's both a Parasaurolophus hiding amongst the trees looking for its offspring and a massive Ankylosaurus with its club-like tail standing behind a fence. Opposite, a Gyrosphere, which featured prominently in the films, offers a photo opportunity for guests, and more Park Rangers are on hand to tell visitors about the dinosaurs. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc Guests then enter the Genetic Creation Lab, which rounds off the herbivore portion of guests' Jurassic World experience. Featuring a trio of baby Parasaurolophus inside an incubator, numerous fossilised mosquitoes on display and an opportunity to compare dinosaur droppings from both herbivores and carnivores through gloves, there are plenty of things to discuss with the white lab coat-wearing staff members, who roam the space alongside guests. The baby dinosaur interactions also keep on coming within the Creation Lab, with a female Stygimoloch, complete with a reinforced skull, offered up for the admiration and affection of visitors. Moving upstairs in NEON, guests enter the carnivore area of Jurassic World as groups and proceed through a series of spaces together, guided by Park Rangers. In the first space, a small waiting area, there's a five-foot-long Tyrannosaurus Rex skull and a chance for younger guests to try their hand at palaeontology by uncovering bones from within a sandpit. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc The real start of this section, and perhaps the entire experience, however, is Bumpy. Within the Jurassic World universe, they're the main dinosaur protagonist of Camp Cretaceous - the animated Netflix series set on Isla Nublar, which takes place in the same time period as 2015's Jurassic World film. Within Jurassic World: The Experience, they're presented as another baby dinosaur puppet that guests can meet one-on-one to pet. To describe Bumpy as cute is an understatement, and the reactions of our group confirmed that they immediately stole the hearts of everyone in the room. Moving into the final rooms of Jurassic World: The Experience, guests come face to face with Blue, the dinosaur protagonist of the recent Jurassic World trilogy, which is the only full-size dinosaur in the experience puppeted by a human performer. Their feeder explains that Blue is the alpha in their family, and we should maintain a distance for our own safety. Jurassic World: The Experience is one of the few attractions where guests actually expect things to go wrong, and true to form, the sirens soon alarm, and guests are told they must evacuate due to nearby dinosaurs having escaped. In the final room of the show, guests find themselves trapped between a life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex, which stomps across the room and stops just feet away from guests behind a fence, and a Carnotaurus, which is equally massive and intimidating. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc As Park Rangers frantically try to unlock the gate that stands between the group and safety, both dinosaurs wreak havoc on the space by destroying lamp posts and engaging in an extended rally of roars as the sirens and flashing red warning lights continue to blare. While everyone attending Jurassic World: The Experience knows that at some point, they'll be faced with the film's scariest and most iconic dinosaurs, and it'd be a pretty terrible experience if the Jurassic World staff didn't put guests in a perilous situation, the intensity of this final sequence may well catch some families with young children off guard. For adults and big kids, however, it's a pulse-raising set piece that places guests in a situation on par with that of the films, and the production value more than justifies having the 'Jurassic World' name attached to the experience. With plenty of meticulously well-crafted animatronics, engaging interactions with both the Park Rangers and dinosaurs, and an action-filled finale, Jurassic World: The Experience is a great time for families and adults alike, even if it's a little short. The only way this experience could be better is if they dressed all the dinosaurs up in Christmas jumpers, but we'll keep going to South Kensington to see that instead... ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Jurassic World: The Experience runs at NEON at Battersea Power Station until 4th January 2026. Tickets are priced from £28.95 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Jurassic World: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews.

This entertaining but flawed interactive adaptation of Netflix's smash-hit series arrives in London, giving visitors the chance to step into the world of Squid Game. Photo: Squid Game: The Experience (London) Squid Game: The Experience, which has recently opened at Immerse LDN below the ExCel Centre, is the latest interactive experience based on a pre-existing IP to land in London. Following successful launches in New York, Sydney, Seoul and Madrid, this 60-minute-long experience sees visitors competing in a series of games - directly lifted and adapted from the Netflix series - for points and the approval of the masked Front Man. Nowadays, London has no shortage of experiences that offer competitive socialising. With the long-running Crystal Maze experience in Piccadilly Circus, the recent Taskmaster Live Experience in Canada Water, and the upcoming Traitors Live Experience in Covent Garden, every corner of the city has activities that pit friends against each other in a highly themed environment. Given the steep competition and high expectations that come with adapting one of Netflix's most successful series into an interactive show, Squid Game: The Experience unfortunately falls short of distinguishing itself from the city's many other competitive offerings. In the experience, groups of between 20 and 40 compete against each other in tests of memory, agility, and reactions. The experience begins in the waiting area, where each player is given a numbered bib and an NFC-tagged wristband. Players are photographed upon entry to have their faces displayed alongside their scores, and groups are ushered into a recreation of the Dormitory, which is lined with bunk beds and has a pink masked guard guarding the door. There's an in-world introductory talk from a suited games master, making clear that violence of any kind isn't allowed, before the larger group is split into two groups of around 20 players (the Blue and Red teams) and thrown into the games. Photo: Squid Game: The Experience (London) First up is Memory Steps, which is taken from the glass bridge game in Season 1 of the show. With a strip of 12 see-through floor panels ahead of each player, they're given two seconds to memorise the pattern as each panel lights up either red or green. Every player's pattern differs, so there's no safety in copying other players' steps and no room for error. It's here that the problems with Squid Game: The Experience start to become apparent. The show's scoring system, which consists of each player individually tapping their wristband on one of three plinths, is painfully slow to sort, despite every group having a dedicated host with a tablet who ideally would be able to score each contestant after their attempt. Logging scores takes nearly as long as the game, and for those who went first, it's a long wait before they can do anything besides wait for the other competitors to finish. Moving into the next space, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the game competitors are about to play is Dalgona, given the show's interior matches the children's playground theme from that game in the show, but it's in fact Marbles – another challenge from Season 1. In small groups, each player takes turns trying to land a marble in the shape in the centre of a table to claim the other marbles in play. There's some friendly rivalry between the contestants in each group in this game, which is partly down to everyone naturally sticking with their party, and the difficulty level of this challenge means that, again, there's little room for error. Following this second game, the scores on the leaderboard are totalled up after another long wait to tap wristbands, and the leaders of the competition start to become clear. Those who won their game are awarded upwards of 10 points, while most other players receive points in the lower single digits, making the gulf between successful players and those falling behind pretty vast after just two games. Photo: Squid Game: The Experience (London) Thankfully for the players at the top end of the leaderboard, their lead is secure as the next game is scored as a group and sees the Blue and Red teams going head-to-head in Rope Game. Divided by a glass window, each contestant on both teams has 5 seconds to pull a suspended rope as hard and fast as they can in an attempt to move a marker along a track overhead. Despite encouragement to boo those behind the glass and cheer on fellow competitors as everyone works towards a common goal, it's hard to ignore that each player's contribution to this game never exceeds 5 seconds and is largely made up of (you guessed it..) queuing to have their attempt, followed by more queuing to receive their points. Photo: Squid Game: The Experience (London) The best-known and most iconic game from the Netflix series, Red Light Green Light, follows, with both the Red and Blue teams reunited to compete again as individuals. The rules to this one are pretty simple - only move when the room's lighting turns green, and remain stationary when it's red. On hand to oversee the players in this game is a masked pink guard (why they're not in every room of the experience, we're not sure..), who will point out players who wobble, move or fall during the red light sections of the game. With the player count back up to 40, there are quite a few competitors caught out and forced to restart. In a departure from the TV show's depiction of this game, though weirdly, in keeping with the series' mobile game adaptation, there are a number of obstacles scattered throughout the playing field that players can hide and reposition behind, out of view from the guards and the towering Young-Hee doll. While there are a couple of minutes on the clock to make it from one side to the other successfully, players are likely to be completely unaware of how much time is remaining, as the screens showing the ticking clock are at the back of the room and immediately out of players' sightlines once the game begins. Those hoping to time their movements to Young-Hee's song quickly have to adopt another strategy, as it's completely absent from the game portion of this room, and with their head also not swivelling with each lighting change, several elements from the show's version of this game are missing. Despite this, it's far and away the most engaging and tense challenge in Squid Game: The Experience, with a number of false starts catching players out and people trapped up in each other's personal space for extended periods, waiting for the next green light. Photo: Squid Game: The Experience (London) The experience concludes with the final game, Round and Round, which is the only game adapted from Season 2 of the show. With no doors for players to run through while the clock runs down, players need to instead run to one of the Dalgona symbols on the floor when the corresponding symbol appears on screen. It's a pretty brutal game for those looking to make it all the way, with the vast majority of players knocked out in the first round. Those who make it through are quickly whittled down until there's only one player left, who then goes head-to-head with the game's overall points winner in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. In a last-minute reveal, the Front Man, who has only appeared on-screen in each room, enters and presents the winning player with a choice: keep the prize for themselves or divide it amongst all the players. The prize, if it's divided amongst everyone? A discount in the gift shop. Video: Squid Game: The Experience London While Squid Game: The Experience fulfils the promise of immersing visitors in the show's world, and there's a fun novelty to playing the games so many of us are familiar with, it lacks the intensity and polish of the source material. The slow processing of each player's scores ruins any momentum gained from playing the games, and operational issues, including extended delays going into each room, means far too much of the experience is spent waiting around for things to happen. With just two finalists from a pool of 40 players, early setbacks can also feel irreversible. You could argue this makes sense within the show's world - given most of the players would be long dead by the time the final game comes around if competing in the games for real - but the stakes and jeopardy associated with trying to do well are diminished when most players realise they have no chance of making it to the finale. Photo: Squid Game: The Experience (London) For die-hard fans of the series, the chance to step into recreations of the show's games and get photos while taking part will make Squid Game: The Experience an enjoyable visit, even if the gameplay and operations make the experience a bit of a damp squib (game) compared to many other competitive socialising experiences on offer across the city. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Squid Game: The Experience runs at Immerse LDN until 4th January 2026. Tickets are priced from £35.00 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com From 17th July 2025, winners of Squid Game: The Experience will receive priority consideration for casting in the next season of Squid Game: The Challenge. Find out more here. For more reviews of immersive experiences like Squid Game: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews.

With the Burning Blimp Festival, Phantom Peak once again proves why they're the best immersive experience this side of the Ridge. Photo: Alistair Veryard The platypus-loving town of Phantom Peak has become a mainstay of London's immersive scene in the three years since it first opened. Over the last 12 seasons, the show's constantly updating selection of trails, all delivered through regular seasonal updates, has kept its detailed, lore-rich story progressing at a rapid pace and given guests a reason to return to the town month after month without ever running out of things to do. With nearly 150 individual story trails now under its belt, Phantom Peak has also amassed a loyal fan base and continues to take audience feedback on board to improve on each previous iteration of the show. With its latest season, the Burning Blimp Festival, Phantom Peak has once again outdone itself and delivered its strongest experience yet. Regulars to Phantom Peak will be familiar with the show's tried and tested formula. Each new season brings with it a fresh batch of story trails, through which 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, each one is packed full of humour, endlessly silly, and leads you down a path far more bizarre, irreverent and surreal than the start point ever suggested. Photo: Alistair Veryard For those keen to collect all of this season's trail cards, which are given to guests upon completion of each storyline, it'll take at least 3 visits, and that's without giving yourself time to engage with the various other distractions on offer around town, which include a trio of carnival games, fully functional in-world arcade machines, communal competitions, and, of course, the varied food and drink options. This season, the town is celebrating the third anniversary of the blimp crash that supposedly killed former Mayor Furbish. Visitors to Phantom Peak's opening season will recall the aftermath of said crash, when much of the town's indoor area was blocked off by the wreckage, and during 2024's Festival of Innovation season, it was revealed in one of the trails that Furbish was actually alive and well, hiding in the mines beneath the town and waiting for the right moment to return. Photo: Alistair Veryard While Furbish's 'death' was a seismic event within the town of Phantom Peak in more ways than one, the biggest consequence to come of it was enabling its current leader, Jonas, to take over and kick-start the events that have been unfolding over the last 12 seasons of the show. Despite Jonas overseeing Phantom Peak from afar, their impact is nevertheless still felt, and whispered talk of their master plan - dubbed The Great Undoing - has been hanging over residents' heads for several seasons now. Will Furbish's return thwart Jonas's scheme, or has the damage already been done? Only time will tell. As ever, many of Burning Blimp's new trails engage with pop culture, subverting and parodying real-world personalities, media, and products. Fans of Severance won't fail to notice the similarities between the Apple TV+ show and the events of 'Pocket Change', which has Mayor Pocket (David Carter) battling against a clone of themselves (referred to as their 'Hottie') for dominance of their shared mind, and the Furby-inspired 'Unbox Me, Coward' concludes with one of the most surreal moments in the show's history - quite the achievement, given how off-the-wall storylines often are at Phantom Peak. Following on from last season's Wicked-inspired trail, 'Unpopular', it's the turn of Les Misérables to get the Phantom Peak treatment in 'Less Miserable'. With three full-length parody songs scattered throughout the trail, which focuses on the ongoing power struggle between JONACO and The Resistance, it's an ideal trail for West End fans, as long as they can handle the numerous digs and swipes made at the genre that are also littered throughout. Photo: Alistair Veryard Phantom Peak's continued embracing of puppetry, which has only ramped up with each passing season, has given the show's exceptionally talented cast a chance to show off their range as they take control of the town's felt-based residents. On one side of town, General Store owner Datchery (Tatiana Nicholle Davis) unwittingly finds themselves in the middle of a love triangle with the Miss Piggy-inspired Lady Oinkerton, with insults and raised voices rapidly escalating into something akin to a Punch and Judy show. Elsewhere, fan favourite Sherlock Bones (puppeted by Jimmy Roberts, who plays Lovehart) is on the verge of cracking their latest case wide open and needs visitors' help to connect the dots in 'No String Attached'. Giffard (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness), the former Canal Bar owner who's climbed the corporate ladder to become a JONACO lawyer, also finds themselves commanding a Colonel Sanders-esque puppet of former Mayor Furbish as they continue to deal with their ongoing family struggles in 'Finger Lickin' Good'. Photo: Alistair Veryard Alongside the physical (and puppet) cast, Phantom Peak's continued refinement with each new season has seen them lean far more into filming bespoke video content for the town's Videomatics and Jonavisions (button/dial-operated screens that display pre-made videos when correct digits are entered). While many videos feature the show's regular cast, former cast members Danny Romeo and Tibet Boyer, who now both serve on the show's writing team, work overtime as prominent on-screen talent, taking on numerous roles including an unhinged toy reviewer, a murderous cult leader and a thuggish goon. These engaging live-action videos lend themselves perfectly to the show's unique sense of humour and ramp up the ridiculousness of each trails contents even further. After 13 seasons of Phantom Peak, it's easy to take the show's unique design for granted. Upon launch in 2022, the trail format Phantom Peak adopted was a massive departure from the immersive, open-world norm most commonly seen in Secret Cinema and Punchdrunk productions. Within Phantom Peak, every one of the show's townsfolk remains in one place throughout the experience, meaning there's no risk of being unable to complete a storyline because they've run off behind a locked door, never to be seen again, and without any big set-piece moments outside of the opening and closing ceremony, which everyone is gathered together for, the show removes the sense of FOMO so often built into the design of other open-world immersive experiences. All of the show's best moments are available for every group at any time by completing the trails and interacting with the show's cast one-on-one. Photo: Alistair Veryard Those who have been paying attention to the show's overarching narrative in recent seasons have likely noticed that this initial, multi-year chapter of Phantom Peak's story appears to be coming to a close. Ahead of tickets to last season going on sale, it was announced that it was due to be their final at the show's current Canada Water venue. Thankfully, this closing season has been pushed back to a later date due to an extension on their lease of the venue. While we're still awaiting details on exactly what the future holds for Phantom Peak once it leaves behind its current home, it's clear that there's plenty of life left in the town yet, even if the Great Undoing sees it changed forever. Phantom Peak is far and away the best immersive show London has to offer. An unrivalled experience that continues to deliver season after season, it's a hilarious, engaging and deeply rewarding experience for both regular and first-time visitors. ★★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Phantom Peak's The Burning Blimp Festival 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 The Burning Blimp Festival, check out our recent Reviews.

This interactive crime-solving experience delivers twists and turns, mountains of detailed evidence, and a complex narrative over the course of 90 minutes. Photo: Sam Bush Jury Games, created by Joe Ball, Tom Black, Ellie Russo and Edward Andrews, is an interactive crime-solving experience that invites audiences to take part in the remote trial of Harry Briggs, an investigative journalist accused of committing arson and murder. Originally conceived as an online experience during the 2020 lockdowns, in recent years the show has found a permanent home at Theatre Deli near Liverpool Street for in-person performances of up to 12 people per session, which can be booked as either private or public shows. In Jury Games' original experience, The Trial of Harry Briggs, the Justice Act of 2025 has recently been passed to try and help clear the backlog of cases caused by the pandemic. Temporary courtrooms, such as the one in Theatre Deli, have been set up across the country to cut through the red tape and allow the processing of cases without all the fuss of 'conventional' courtrooms. While these temporary courtrooms are described in the show's opening Ministry of Justice video as 'a streamlined and cost-effective process', they're also a good way of allowing jurors to have both their phones and drinks from the bar in the room throughout, without being held in contempt of court. Photo: Sam Bush For Harry, who was found at the scene acting erratically and covered in paraffin with a cut on his forehead, the odds are stacked against him in his trial. While he doesn't deny starting the fires that destroyed an office in New Malden, he claims to have had no idea that a cleaner, identified as Richard Holmes, was inside the building at the time. Now behind bars in HMP Wandsworth, he's awaiting the jury's verdict on whether to charge him with murder or manslaughter, and from first impressions, it could go either way. Throughout the 90-minute experience, jurors are presented with dozens of printed documents, numerous online blog posts, social media profiles, emails and bags of physical evidence. Staying on top of everything is no small task, with the group initially advised to split the workload amongst themselves and let the rest of the group know about any important findings. The courtroom's blank whiteboard wall is hastily filled with frantically scribbled information, potential connections are outlined, and a list of questions is drawn up for the accused, who will soon appear via video link for their first questioning from the jury. Photo: Sam Bush Harry Briggs (played wonderfully by Jack Flammiger) initially proves to be an unreliable witness. Speaking via video call on the room's TV monitor, they're cagey and evasive, unable to answer questions without contradicting either themselves or the evidence. It's clear that if the jury wants to make any headway in the case and discover the truth about the night in question, they need to get Harry onside in their follow-up calls. To do so, jurors must look beyond the evidence in the room and involve those outside the courtroom. Using their personal phones, jurors need to communicate via email and call with an anonymous outsider, who seems to know more than they're letting on, but in this first instance, only provides the information needed to help win Harry's trust. Photo: Sam Bush The breadth of evidence available for jurors to uncover throughout The Trial of Harry Briggs is pretty staggering. On top of the detailed printed documents and realistic physical evidence in the room with the jury, there's also a sizeable digital component to the experience, which can be accessed via the two laptops at the back of the room or through guests' phones via QR code. If the group aren't actively searching for personal details or companies' information on the Metropolitan Police database, there's a backup of Harry's password-protected phone that needs cracking, concealed private servers only accessible via IP addresses, and a string of emails and voicemails being left for jurors throughout the experience to keep them occupied. Throughout Jury Games, information believed to be true is cross-checked, theories are quickly disproven, and bombshell discoveries mean the jury's collective idea of what is true and what is false changes with every passing minute. For teams to succeed and get to the bottom of this complex, interconnected story before giving their final verdict at the end of the experience, teamwork and strong communication are key, and jurors need to be okay with others having differing opinions. A lot of a group's success may rest on who else they're paired up with during a public session, and there is a danger of the loudest voices drowning out those less willing to make their opinions known, much like in a real-life jury. The in-person Ministry of Justice co-ordinator, who oversees the jury in the courtroom, does an admirable job of getting everyone involved in the case and can offer gentle nudges in the right direction if jurors end up chasing their tails for too long. Photo: Sam Bush While the story that unfolds across Jury Games’ 90-minute run-time doesn’t comment on the built-in problems often inherent in real-life juries, such as biases, emotional decision-making and legal speak going over jurors' heads, it does give participants a chance to step into the shoes of the hundreds of people called up for real jury duty across the country every day. Despite the case being fictional, there’s a weight attached to each accusation and thought when it’s going to change the trajectory of someone’s life, and the final deliberations over if and what crime to charge Harry with are surprisingly tense, as everyone tries to justify their own opinions. Meticulously crafted, incredibly detailed, and with enough twists and turns to satisfy even the most die-hard true crime fan, Jury Games delivers an interactive experience that puts the audience in control every step of the way. It's a frantic and information-packed 90 minutes that will leave you eager to keep unpacking the details of the case long after a verdict is delivered. With Jury Games, we'd be more than happy to take our seats and fulfil our civil duty all over again. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Jury Games runs at Theatre Deli until 28th December 2025. Tickets are priced from £46.50 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit jurygames.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Jury Games, check out our recent Reviews.

This London-based experience, based on the hit BBC series, has racers set off on a city-wide foot adventure against the clock to uncover some of the city's best hidden spots. Image: Race Across The World - The Experience Race Across The World: The Experience, based on the hit BBC series, is the latest city-wide treasure hunt experience from CityDays. While the TV series this experience is based on has competitors racing for 50-plus days across multiple countries with little more than a map, a GPS tracker, and several thousand pounds to pay for travel, lodging, and food, this new London-based race runs anywhere from 2 to 4 hours and sees those taking part cover roughly 5km on foot through Central London. Staples of the BBC series - including budget management and navigating without a map - have been carried over and make up the core experience, which feels like the closest adaptation of the TV series possible without requiring a passport or more than an afternoon of your time. For us, our team of two began racing on a sunny Saturday afternoon outside of Liverpool Street station. The race kicked off with a dash to a nearby business (for us, a quiet pub about 10 minutes away from the main line station) to collect a black Race Across The World: The Experience branded envelope from behind the bar. Within it, eight banknotes and four see-through sheets with markings. The experience's instructions, which are all delivered via WhatsApp, told us to inspect the banknotes closely, as they were key to discovering the first pit stop location, whilst the see-through sheets would be needed to solve a physical puzzle later in the first leg. Photo: Immersive Rumours With a destination for the first leg figured out, one of Race Across The World's most important components - our team's budget - came into play. Just like in the show, each team is provided with a travel budget to spend on their race, totalling £30 (roughly the price of a black cab from Liverpool Street to the experience's final location). In each of the experience's three legs, you're presented with two options for directions, each with differing prices. Those with the cash to spare can pay over the odds for clear and concise directions, while those looking to be more frugal can pay less for more obtuse directions that require some lateral thinking to decode. While some set points throughout the race are the same for all teams, your chosen character's directions can lead you down very different paths from those who pick the alternative, making every choice you make matter all the more. With prices ranging from £10 to £25 for directions each leg, teams also need to pick up 'work' that comes in the form of riddles and puzzles that can be done on the move to top up their budget. If the price of directions isn't already high enough to make a team's wallet cry, there are time penalties for incorrect answers and monetary charges for those who require hints or directions if properly lost to also think about. Keen to get moving as soon as possible, but with one eye on each navigator's prices, we opt for The Tourist, who was the cheaper of our two options. While their instructions weren't always the easiest to follow, we were able to make good time and were well on our way to our first pit stop, until we hit an unexpected roadblock... Photo: Andreas Karamalikis A key part of Race Across The World: The Experience is that racers interact with and explore the real world. By using publicly accessible parts of the city, there is no doubt going to be situations that arise which are outside of the creator's control. We ran into one such situation after turning a corner on the outskirts of the Liverpool Street area, when we were met with a large cordon around the sculpture we needed to reach, thanks to a film crew setting up to shoot. With police guarding the closed area and a large group of protestors nearby, we had a brief, albeit tense, conversation with a police officer in which they told us to turn around. They were predictably unsympathetic to us, saying we were just trying to do a treasure hunt, so we had no choice but to spend more of our rapidly dwindling budget on hints in order to progress. Thankfully, this unplanned detour didn't detract from the experience and, in our case, actually added to it by forcing us to quickly improvise and work out alternative routes to get back on track with the clock still ticking away, though we'd be lying if we said we weren't still bitter about the hit to our in-game budget. Photo: Race Across The World - The Experience While several of the locations we ended up visiting throughout the afternoon were familiar to us from our collective 20-plus years of living in the city, being a local didn't give us any inherent advantage over those less familiar with the geography of London. The experience relies heavily on smaller back streets away from the hustle and bustle, so even the most knowledgeable Londoners will likely end up somewhere they've never been before. Each of the race's pit stops gives you a breather in some of the city's most photogenic urban areas, and with the clock paused, teams are free to take as long or short a break as they like before resuming the race. During each of these rest periods, an update as to your team's total time so far compared to other races is delivered via WhatsApp, allowing you to see how efficiently you've made it through each of the legs. While those with a competitive side will find themselves obsessing over how much time they've gained or lost in each leg and cursing every red pedestrian traffic light, we suspect even the most casual of players will enjoy seeing how they're stacking up against other racers. Outside of navigating the capital without a map, one of Race Across The World: The Experience's biggest strengths is that it forces you to engage and look at the city around you differently. Racers will spend a lot of time searching for small details on buildings, interrogating the text on memorials and statues, and searching for monuments to the past that you'd otherwise walk past without a second thought. Much like in the show, the most rewarding moments of this London-based experience come when you're exploring the road less travelled. Photo: Robert Bye A couple of hours into our race, and with the clock still ticking, we approached the final destination in our city-wide race - a waterfront pub to the east of the city. Uttering a code phrase to the bar staff secured us our final puzzle of the day - a padlocked bag containing the guestbook - and after working out the correct combination thanks to a collection of postcards from various globetrotters, all that was left to do was add our names to the guestbook, collect our Race Across The World keepsakes, and have a well-earned drink as the sun began to set. While London has no shortage of scavenger hunt experiences (CityDays has 11 other experiences available, with other companies offering similar themed experiences across all four corners of the city), Race Across The World: The Experience's combination of exploration, budget management and puzzling makes it a great family-friendly activity for those looking to get out and experience the city. For us, Race Across The World: The Experience more than lived up to the promise of delivering on the show's best bits, and stands out as one of the city's best treasure hunt experiences. This is a race we'd happily run again. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Race Across The World: The Experience runs across Central London until 31st December 2025. Tickets are priced from £25.00 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Race Across The World: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews.