Photo: ScreamWorks Bloodbath is an immersive horror experience located in a secret location in Bethnal Green. It's been produced by ScreamWorks - a brand new name on the immersive theatre scene, and one we suspect we'll hear a lot more of in the near future. If this show is anything to go by, and their future plans are as ambitious as this show is, they'll soon hold the crown for having the most intense immersive shows in the city. Bloodbath was an overwhelming, boundary-pushing, scary and intense experience, which goes far beyond anything else currently on offer in London. For some time, the capital has lacked any truly scary things to do (for theatre anyway...), so it's great to see that change with the arrival of Bloodbath. Prepare to have your personal space invaded, the limits of taste and decency pushed, and all of your possessions taken from you and literally thrown in a bin (but of course, you'll get everything back at the end!). The show's story is a relatively simple one - you've been invited to visit the home of a real-life serial killer, and over the course of an hour, you're piecing together the story of how he became who he is today and discovering what became of his numerous victims. We learn all this from chilling audio and video recordings, rummaging through the remains of his dilapidated home, and of course, hearing directly from the killer himself. Upon arrival at the secret East London location, you're greeted with Missing posters for his latest victim, Jenny McPhearson. Last seen mere metres from where you're standing, her whereabouts have been unknown to the authorities for several weeks. Jack, our host for the evening, is keen to avoid prying eyes - earlier in the day, we received an email from him with meeting instructions that made clear that he's trying to avoid 'those in positions of power' from getting in the way of his 'great plan'. After checking in and signing the waiver that grants the organisers permission to verbally abuse, touch, shock, force feed and restrain us, we have sheets thrown over our heads and are escorted inside. The reactions of those in the nearby petrol station forecourt are unknown to us, but it's no doubt quite the sight for passers-by. Unsurprisingly for an immersive horror show, the experience is linear and sees us moving from room to room over the course of the next hour. At first, it's a gentle easing into the story as we're free to explore several rooms of Jack's house without interruption - learning more about the family history and the current state of affairs for Jack, his brother Abel and their mother, Grace. Through the walls, we repeatedly hear loud banging and screaming - muffled voices and shrieks that leave us unsure if it's other guests genuinely fearing for their lives, or just the actors trying to scare the life out of them. Bloodbath is a show that seems to revel in taboo and voyeurism. With the whole world seemingly obsessed with true crime and real-life murders, the show feels like a natural progression of our collective fascination with the grizzly stories you can hear on any of the hundreds of true crime podcasts available online. The show is inviting us to see what being in one of those stories would be like, and at points makes us complicit in what's happening to those around us. Photo: ScreamWorks A sequence mid-way through the show allows the audience to engage directly with the idea of pain as entertainment, inviting us to directly inflict it upon a helpless woman behind a glass screen. There's an anonymity afforded to audience members by the white cloth masks they wear for large parts of the experience. It encourages us to be worse versions of ourselves when given the chance. The small cast of actors we meet throughout all manage to perfectly flip between being darkly comic and genuinely scary. Abel, whom we meet early on in the show, is a warm and welcoming psychopath who later turns into a terrifying Leatherface-esque figure, causing us to literally climb and crawl for our lives. There are personal touches throughout the experience that made us truly feel like guests of a serial killer, rather than just a visitor to a show. These included photos of our party lifted from our social media accounts defaced and pinned to the walls, our names scrawled in blood on the bathroom mirror, and consistently being referred to by name, despite never having introduced ourselves. Nearly every one of the points raised in the waiver before we entered happened to our group. Your comfort level with these kinds of things is going to vary from group to group, but we feel it's worth noting that if your group is a mix of genders, the female guests may be on the receiving end of the most uncomfortable interactions - or at least that was our experience when we visited. Photo: Screamworks While this might all sound quite heavy, overall, Bloodbath is as much a psychological thriller as it is a traditional horror experience. It's not 60 minutes of jump scares and being grabbed, and you'll likely come out having had as many fun moments as scary. Our group all walked away saying we had an amazing time, and we'd definitely be back for whatever ScreamWorks have cooking up next. We would highly recommend reading the Consent page on the ScreamWorks website before booking, so you're able to get a better understanding of what you're letting yourself in for. You can, of course, revoke your consent for any of these things to happen to you at any time by using the safe word or action. Not for the faint of heart, Bloodbath is a killer night out for those looking to push themselves outside of their comfort zones. ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Screamwork's Bloodbath is located at a secret location in Bethnal Green, East London. The show is currently running until the end of May 2023. Tickets are available through screamworks.co.uk, with prices starting at £45 per person.

We jump aboard the Wishmas Train to review Secret Cinema's latest immersive production at The Old Bauble Factory beneath Waterloo Station. Photo: Matt Crockett Wishmas - an original immersive production from the Secret Cinema team - has opened at The Old Bauble Factory in Waterloo. Tailored for families and younger audiences, this 60-minute walkthrough experience promises a 'fully immersive festive realm, featuring live actors and enchanting storytelling'. Located beneath Waterloo Station on Launcelot Street, it takes place within The Vaults - a venue well known for having hosted a string of immersive theatre shows in the past. Our Wishmas journey begins in the Sorting Office with one of the Wishkeepers - the elf-like assistants whose mission is to ensure every Christmas wish makes it safely to Father Christmas. With the walls of the room adorned with dozens of small birdhouses, we're told all about the journey wishes make, the important role Robins play in delivering said wishes, and a bit about the world of Wishmas. It's an extended scene in which guests sit and listen to a Wishkeeper deliver a monologue - something that occurs several times throughout the show. Whether that is a blessing or a curse likely has to do with how engaged your little ones are if you're visiting as a family... Photos: Matt Crockett One of Wishmas' strongest elements is undoubtedly the set design by Julie Landau. The Wishmas Train, with its candy-striped poles and festive dividers, feels like stepping into an alternate universe where TfL have extended the Northern Line to Lapland. The Merry Maps of Everywhere Room - where reindeer's movements are tracked across the globe - is a festive twist on a military command centre, and small details such as the individually labelled doorways in the themed hallways of the venue sell the idea that we're only seeing a small part of a much larger festive operation. Photo: Matt Crockett The latter half of the experience allows the audience to interact with the world in a tangible way - tasked with using Wishmas' reindeer trackers to locate missing puzzle pieces, and turning large cogs to reverse time with the Clock of Now. These activities, all thoughtfully designed with children in mind, provide rewarding ways to involve every guest in the narrative. It's a welcome shift from the opening half-hour, which lacked any hands-on activity. Photo: Matt Crockett The experience concludes with a face-to-face with Father Christmas. Always teed up to be the highlight of any festive experience, the show's ending delivers a series of wholesome moments. There are some fun sleight-of-hand tricks on display from both Father Christmas and his Wishkeeper assistant, and a short sing-along section in which we're all encouraged to take part. While we visited without any children, the reactions and looks of wonder from those in our larger group seemed to confirm that it's a heart-warming end to our time in Wishmas. On top of the standard tickets that give you access to the full 60-minute walkthrough experience, there are a couple of other ticket options available for those looking to extend their visit. These include a meet and greet with Father Christmas (which includes a gift and souvenir photo), as well as a visit to the craft workshop where you can make your own bauble to take home. Photo: Matt Crockett Following Secret Cinema being bought out by TodayTix in 2022 for around $100 million, the company seem to now be entering a new phase. Reports of them taking over a venue in Camden Town for future productions have alluded to them moving away from the large-scale, free-roaming experiences that helped them become so well known and instead pivoting to timed-entry walkthrough experiences more akin to Wishmas. While this show works overall given its target audience, the potential retirement of the format that served them so well up until now would be a loss for both audiences and the immersive industry as a whole. It's hard to imagine an adaptation of something like Stranger Things or Guardians of the Galaxy working as well as a walk-through experience. ★★★½ Wishmas runs until 7th January near Waterloo Station. Tickets start at £29 and can be booked via wishmas.co.uk

Canada Water seems to do pretty well for itself when it comes to immersive experiences - there's an area a stones throw from the tube station that has been home to some of the capital’s best experiences in the last decade. Whether it’s Secret Cinema’s run of shows between 2015 and 2016 at Harmsworth Quays that saw the company at a creative high or the ongoing story within Phantom Peak, Canada Water is a hotspot for great immersive work. This trend continues with Rumble In The Jungle Rematch, taking place at Dock X from now until the end of October. Inspired by the events surrounding the infamous 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, the latest show from Rematch - who specialise in recreating infamous sporting moments of the past, is a heavyweight contender for one of the best new immersive shows of the year. Photo: Rumble In The Jungle Rematch/Lox Photography Rumble In The Jungle Rematch has big shoes to fill - how can you try and do justice to what is widely regarded as the best sporting moment of all time? Director Miguel Hernando Torres Umba seems to have found the answer - by expanding the scope of the show well beyond the boxing ring, to the entire city of Kinshasa. It’s a show that explores the impact and legacy these once-in-a-lifetime events have on individuals, countries, and the culture as a whole and demonstrates how the ripple effect from one night can echo for decades afterwards. In 1974, the country of Zaire was overseen by President Mobutu, who had seized power in a coup nine years prior to the big fight. Throughout his presidency, he would regularly have political opponents killed, repeatedly use the country’s infrastructure and resources to grow his own personal wealth, and mismanage the country’s economy, amongst many other things. Most agree that the boxing match took place in Zaire in an attempt to both distract from the political scrutiny Mobutu was under at the time and improve the reputation of Zaire to the wider world - which today we refer to as sports-washing. In the days leading up to your visit, you’ll be encouraged to register on the event's online portal. Once on there, you’re offered a choice of four character types - World Boxing Organiser, Reporter, Performer and Spectator. Each has its own outfit suggestions and point of contact once you’ve made it to Kinshasa. For our visit, we chose to be Reporters, and our contact was David Frost, who gave us a thorough walk-and-talk introduction to the city of Kinshasa once we found him. He also tasked us with trying to interview the two fighters on tape (though this seems to be a unique one-off experience, as we didn’t see any other reporters with tape recorders in hand during our evening...) Once inside, you’re free to explore the space - which is impressively large, complete with multiple stages, bars and food vendors, a locker room, market stalls and training areas. While it’s all built to a very high standard and has a lot of small details scattered throughout, there isn’t much else to discover after your initial walkthrough of the space, and the focus of the show’s immersive elements seems to be on large crowd experiences over individual exploration, though it's there if you dive head-first into the experience... Photo: Rumble In The Jungle Rematch/Lox Photography The tape recorder we'd been handed earlier in the evening came into its own during a scene where George Foreman was giving a speech in the market area midway through the show. While attempting to 'record' what was being said, George spotted us in the mass of observers and beckoned us over to ask him a few questions in front of the crowd. Alexander Ajuwon, who portrays George Foreman, does a stellar job of capturing his mannerisms, and we found ourselves rooting for him to win, even already knowing the outcome of the yet-to-happen fight. Shortly after our on-stage interview, we followed a hint from David Frost we got earlier in the show, and we were able to speak to a character in a secluded corner after a confrontation with the local military police and learn more about their opinions on the wider political climate in Zaire at the time. It’s a testament to the show that it doesn’t shy away from addressing the reality of the times. There are repeated references to the hardship that locals find themselves under despite the eyes of the world turning to their backyards, and you can sense the tension between what is outwardly portrayed to be happening in Zaire and the reality away from the cameras. Photo: Rumble In The Jungle Rematch/Lox Photography For non-reporters, their experiences will likely differ as their focus is centred elsewhere from the outset. Those who opt for the World Boxing Committee character type could likely spend their time only following the boxers around from press conferences to interviews to training sessions and get a deeper feel for the fighters’ headspaces and relationship with one another going into the fight. If you’re mainly there as a fan of boxing, this feels like the path for you. The same goes for those who choose to be Supporting Artists - the focus would largely be on the musical aspects of the experience, of which the show has many. It all comes to a head just before the finale of the show with a performance on the main stage featuring James Brown, Miriam Makeba and Cecil Cruz as part of Zaire 74 - a largely forgotten music festival that took place in the build-up to the fight. Photo: Rumble In The Jungle Rematch/Lox Photography For those who want a bit more history concerning Muhammad Ali and his journey leading up to the fight, there’s a 10-minute VR experience tucked away towards the back of the venue, which, while being very informative, is maybe overly long when you can remove the headset and see a real-life interpretation of Ali with your own eyes in the same space. The food offerings for those who travel to Kinshasa are courtesy of The Future Plate and are a mix of Congolese and Western fusion. The smell of their cooking permeates the venue and adds another level of immersion for guests, whether they choose to eat or not. Another nice touch within Rumble In The Jungle is the cup system for drinks - for a £1 charge, you get a reusable cup themed to the fight, which also serves as a nice souvenir of the experience. For those inclined, there are also programmes and a selection of merchandise available. Photo: Rumble In The Jungle Rematch/Lox Photography The main event on Rumble In The Jungle Rematch's card is undoubtedly the finale of the show, which seems a live recreation of the Ali-Foreman fight. With audiences flanking three sides of the boxing ring on tiered seating, and a backdrop of archive footage from the original fight, live coverage of Rematch's recreation, and several well-executed pre-recorded moments projected behind the ring, the recreation of the fight is a sight to behold from start to finish. Rematch's recreation contains some of the most impressive fight choreography we’ve seen on a stage and is breathtaking to watch. With every punch, block and dodge on the huge backing screen being mirrored precisely by the two actors playing Ali and Foreman, it’s a spectacle from start to finish and witnessing it first-hand is undoubtedly the highlight of the show. ★★★★ Rumble In The Jungle Rematch is located in Canada Water and is currently set to run until October 29th. For more information visit rumbleinthejunglerematch.com

Photo: Alistair Veryard Twelve months on from opening, Phantom Peak - the platypus-loving mining town located in Canada Water, continues to be one of the most essential immersive experiences in London. Their latest season, Summer’s Peak, which sees all eyes shift towards the Big Dig - a large-scale excavation happening below the town to uncover the remains of an ancient society, continues to build on the foundations laid in the 12 months prior, and the ambition is now clear - this is a far deeper and more detailed experience than anything else out there today. Physically and narratively, Phantom Peak has been in a constant state of expansion. The footprint of the site has grown considerably with multiple new areas added since opening. The biggest change came when Old Town fully opened during the second season, which effectively doubled the size of the town. Since then we’ve seen the arrival of several seasonal areas, including a Wintermas market and Platy World, a platypus-themed exhibit that held some much deeper mysteries - both located on the site of what was a boat ride present during the opening few months. These regular updates to the site add a renewed sense of exploration for repeat visitors, as no two seasons are quite the same. The site is now roughly 30,000 square ft, easily rivalling the scale of most other immersive experiences on offer in London. Photo: Alistair Veryard The number of story trails offered to visitors has also had an equally large growth - with a total of around 65 storylines having been available across their five seasons so far (once a season ends, those storylines are retired). Through these trails, and within the wider world of Phantom Peak, we’ve been asked to do everything from fight off ghosts and ghouls during Hallowed Peak, help Father Platmas escape imprisonment during Wintermas, and give at least one of the town's digital inhabitants sentience and a human body to possess during the Platypus Parade. With every trail involving some combination of puzzle solving, physical exploration and conversing with the townsfolk, the variety of stories that have been written is vast. They’ve touched on everything from corporate espionage to inter-dimensional travel and masked vigilantes, and they’ve all been of a consistently high standard. Photo: Alistair Veryard The cast that has portrayed the dozens of townsfolk across this first year has largely been excellent - all of them able to improvise and respond to visitors' remarks with ease, whether it’s the guests trying to dig into the lore of the world, extract or share a key piece of information, or simply forget what they were meant to ask in the first place. Our personal highlight for some time has been Dr Winter, the evil scientist located in JonaLabs. Always perfectly balancing being slightly mean to visitors while also being so fun to be around that you walk away smiling, even if you’ve just been called a disappointment. The echoes of him shouting ‘Get out of my lab!’ - his farewell to every guest - is a joy to be on the receiving end of. Photo: Alistair Veryard With Phantom Peak being an ongoing storyline, if you’re a visitor who has invested time into repeat visits in the last twelve months, your understanding and relationships with the townsfolk who live there will feel a lot more tangible than those of a firs- time visitor. What may have once been a throwaway comment by someone can hold deeper meaning as more of the story is revealed. Everything you learnt in previous visits is still relevant and only deepens your understanding of the characters and world around you. The residents of Phantom Peak are big personalities with desires and flaws and allegiances that only begin to reveal themselves gradually over time - just like in real-life relationships. The classic bit of advice you hear when talking about immersive shows is 'you get out what you put in', and this is certainly the case here. Despite this, you'd still be able to visit for the first time now and walk away feeling like you've had a complete experience - nearly all of the trail's storylines are either referenced or concluded fully during the closing ceremony. Photo: Alistair Veryard If you’d had two visits a season since opening (which is typically enough time to finish all the trail on offer) you’d be running a total of around 50 hours in the world of Phantom Peak That’s about the same amount of time and story as you’d get from a AAA video game like Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Witcher 3, which is apt as more than any other immersive experience we can think of, Phantom Peak feels like the closest thing around to a real-life video game. From receiving trail prompts through your phone to the collectable trail card rewards you receive upon finishing a storyline, Phantom Peak is able to create an experience as immersive and enthralling as a top-tier video game with no controllers in sight. A recent blooloop article shared news of Phantom Peak’s plans for an upcoming expansion into the US market, reportedly set to be a string of different unique towns akin to Phantom Peak that would rotate every two years, offering us years more stories to dive into. In an immersive landscape where shows, regardless of their quality, can often only justify staying open for a handful of weeks, months, or sometimes years, even the possibility of a decade-long immersive universe for visitors to explore and get lost in is nothing short of miraculous. In years to come, we'll likely look back on Phantom Peak as not just the beginning of a massive ongoing story, but also the beginning of a new chapter in immersive storytelling. We've been singing the praises of this incredible experience for the last year, and will no doubt continue to do so until the story concludes. If you've not visited before, there's no time let the present to dive into this unique world and see what mysteries you can uncover. ★★★★★ Phantom Peak is located in Canada Water and the current season runs until the end of September. For more information visit phantompeak.com. Check out our other reviews from Phantom Peak here.

Photo: Luke Dyson It’s been a bit of a quiet year for Secret Cinema. Following the acquisition of the company in September 2022 by TodayTix, they’ve not mounted a show in the capital since Guardians of the Galaxy opened in late August 2022. Being one of three shows they opened last year (alongside Bridgerton and the long-awaited Dirty Dancing), many fans assumed that with the backing of their new owners, and now firmly in a post-COVID world, 2023 would be full steam ahead with multiple shows opening throughout the year. Instead, we had relative silence on the company's social media in the first few months of the year. After a lot of teasing, it was confirmed in April that their next show would be Grease. But this show would have a twist - they were leaving London behind, instead mounting the show in Birmingham. It’d be their first full show outside of the capital in the UK. They continued to depart from tradition as the event drew closer, releasing a map of the site in June (a month before it even opened!), and also confirming that phones wouldn’t be locked away this time. While it remains to be seen if any of these will become the norm going forward, Grease certainly seemed like an opportunity for Secret Cinema to rewrite its rulebook now that they were under new ownership… The show does feel different to their two most recent outdoor events (Dirty Dancing and Romeo + Juliet) in a few key ways. Firstly, it’s much, much smaller. With a reduced audience capacity, reduced venue size and even a reduced running time for exploration, it’s a more intimate and focused affair than has been the norm. Clocking in at a bit over 90 minutes from doors opening to the film starting, Secret Cinema Presents Grease packs a lot into its exploration time. Relative to Dirty Dancing or Romeo + Juliet, it has roughly the same numbers of buildings and areas to explore, but in a much smaller space. This, coupled with the ratio of cast to guests also feeling higher, makes it easier to see more of the site quickly and get involved in what’s going on around you with ease. The other notable difference between Grease and the company's other outdoor shows is the newly relaxed rules on mobile phones. While they seem to still be trying to find a sweet spot between encouraging audiences to live in the moment, this show permits guests to still take photos inside that don’t include the cast. We found the use of phones to be a refreshing change that didn’t break the immersion of the event. You could get photos of your group inside the event without issue, which will surely help boost the awareness of what it’s actually like inside the gates - something that was tougher with guests' phones locked away previously. The cast all do an outstanding job of turning the Rydell High site into a living, breathing place - from the large re-enactments of songs like Summer Nights and Grease Lightnin’, to smaller character moments like Sandy perfecting stubbing out her cigarette with Frenchy, every pocket of the site has activities going on, and the cast are working non-stop to make the audience part of the world. If you're not being pulled into choir practice or being hit on by Vince Fontaine, you might be taking part in an egg and spoon race for carnival tokens or pulling off the prank of the century against Principal McGee. Even during the film's screening, the cast barely has a moment's rest, with every big song lovingly recreated in front of the screen - the National Bandstand scene is the highlight of this; it’s a chaotic and meticulously timed spectacle that must have been a nightmare to choreograph and perfect in rehearsals. Photo: Luke Dyson Overall, Grease is a great immersive experience that more than does justice to the source material. With a knockout cast and some amazing performances, it's one of the strongest outdoor shows Secret Cinema have put on in recent years. Fingers crossed that future outdoor Secret Cinema shows will follow in the footsteps of Grease and be smaller scale, as it makes for a richer and more engaging experience overall. ★★★★½ Find out about future Secret Cinema shows at secretcinema.org

Photo: Phantom Peak Sitting in the shadow of the former Harmsworth Quays printworks in Canada Water is Phantom Peak, a new immersive experience from the people behind TimeRun and Sherlock: The Game Is Now. Blending elements of escape rooms, immersive theatre and text-based role-playing games, Phantom Peak is a different style of immersive event, and it stands on its own within the London immersive theatre scene. It's an experience that flips a lot of immersive theatre conventions on their head - from making your phone an essential element of the experience, to creating an environment in which the pace is entirely controlled by your own actions - not the world around you. If you're a fan of escape rooms, puzzles and trying to complete storylines and quests when at immersive events, Phantom Peak is a must-do experience. Photo: Phantom Peak We visited Phantom Peak on a weekday evening in August, just a few weeks after it first opened. Speaking to Nick Moran, one of the creators of the experience while there, he described the current state of Phantom Peak as being in the first stage of a multi-year plan that will see the town expand, the storylines change and develop, and the time period in which it's set progress and move forward. It will be an always-growing experience thatchanges over time, getting bigger and better. When you first set foot into the town of Phantom Peak, you're instructed by one of the townsfolk to log on to JonAssist, the experience's companion website on your mobile phone. JonAssist operates like a text-based guide to the town - you'll be referring to it a lot as the website takes you through story trails and tracks your progress as you complete each trail. We were told that there are too many trails to complete in one night, but a healthy amount for those motivated to explore the town and uncover as much as possible is between 5 and 6 trails in an evening. Using the website is essential to your experience, so make sure you've come with a fully charged phone! Photo: Phantom Peak As you first walk in and around the set for Phantom Peak, it's easy to be taken aback by the level of detail. Everything in the world feels like it has a storytelling purpose. From the Videomatic machines that play archive recordings of the town's history and lore when you enter specific four-digit codes, to the robotic doctor that can diagnose patients based on their symptoms, or the Jonagraph devices that allow you to communicate with those living outside the confines of Phantom Peak, every single piece of technology within the steampunk town is there to move the story trails forward. One of the first things we were prompted to do by the JonAssist was find the Town Noticeboard and try to find out which of the town residents is best to speak to about trying to get to the bottom of a recent scandal that occurred at the annual Fiesta of Friendliness party. The noticeboard was full of different posters and notices, nearly all of which had valuable information for anyone of the 16+ story trails currently on offer at Phantom Peak. Without giving away where this story trail goes, it quickly develops into a story of mistaken identities, and we spent the next half hour trying to get to the bottom of it, following every twist and turn along the way. Photo: Phantom Peak One of Phantom Peak's greatest strengths is just how deep the storytelling goes. Nothing feels thrown together or there just for decoration, and basically every element of the experience - from the character interactions, to the posters and signs, to newspaper cuttings on tables and desks around town all feed into the overall interconnected story of the town, which only gets more complex and engaging the more time you invest into it. Every resident we spoke to had their own views and opinions on the town's mysterious leader, Jonas (either positive or negative), other residents, or their own position in the town. The place feels like a real, albeit heightened version of a town with people going about their day-to-day lives. The most radical difference between Phantom Peak and every other immersive experience currently running is how the show handles big story moments. The moment in time we as guests experience at Phantom Peak isn't the most dramatic or exciting in the town's history; it's just an average day. In typical immersive shows, every character is going through their own personal storyline that unfolds over the course of the experience, whether you are there to witness it or not. Because of this, you could be at the bar or the toilet or just not in the right place at the right time and miss out on a key moment at a Punchdrunk or Secret Cinema show, and there's nothing you can do to stop that. Photo: Phantom Peak At Phantom Peak, that isn't possible because all the key moments only happen when you interact with either one of the robots in the town or talk to one of the residents about something specific. It's an incredibly refreshing thing to experience, as it removes the sense of FOMO that you otherwise get in other immersive experiences. It's impossible to miss key moments because you're the one creating and initiating them. It's storytelling on a personal level, and it makes your visit feel unique and intimate - as if you're the only one witnessing it. During our visit, we completed 8 of the story trails on offer. When you complete one, the resident who wraps up that story thanks you for your help by rewarding you with a small tarot-style card.. Each is numbered and serves as a great memento to remember the experience by. If you're a completionist, it's also a great motivator to keep doing the trails and hopefully collect all the cards across multiple visits. Speaking to the creative team behind Phantom Peak at the end of our visit, they laid out the future plans for the experience - with expansions to the set currently being developed (with hopes to have them completed by October), the experience will have different 'seasons' where the storylines all jump forward in time and the residents of the town progress with their lives. Residents who are running for Mayor in the current version of Phantom Peak may well win the election in the next season, for example, and new quests will be added along with more characters. This should give Phantom Peak an extra level of enjoyment for repeat visitors who can see what the residents of the town have gone on to do as time has passed. Phantom Peak is an amazing experience for those who are fans of immersive theatre. It's been designed to allow guests to have an intimate, personalised experience where they are in control of the narrative and allow for a huge amount of fun to be had exploring everything the town has to offer. With future expansions to the experience planned, Phantom Peak is only going to build and improve upon an incredibly impressive start. We can't wait to revisit and uncover more of the mysteries the town has to offer. ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Phantom Peak is located in Canada Water, London. Tickets are available through phantompeak.com with prices starting from £34 per person.

As an immersive version of the 90's TV series, The Crystal Maze Live Experience delivers on every front and allows guests to live out their dreams of stepping into The Crystal Dome. Photo: The Crystal Maze Live Experience For those of a certain age, The Crystal Maze needs little introduction. A staple of 90’s British TV, the Channel 4 game show stood head and shoulders above every other show on the air at the time and saw huge success throughout its six-series run, with millions tuning in every week. Each episode of the original TV series saw a new team tackle a mix of mental, physical and skill-based challenges spread across five themed zones in an attempt to secure crystals and win big in The Crystal Dome - a huge glass geodesic sphere in which teams attempted to grab as many gold tickets as possible. The Crystal Maze Live Experience - first launched in 2016 by Little Lion Entertainment after a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign - reimagines the series as an immersive experience, with teams taking on the roles of contestants. Alongside the London edition on Shaftesbury Avenue, a Manchester version operates out of a former Granada TV soundstage on Lower Byrom St, a short walk from the city centre. As part of the Live Experience, teams of up to eight people have 75 minutes to play through a series of fast-paced challenges under the guidance of their dedicated Maze Master and take on The Crystal Dome. Mirroring the original TV series, the venue is divided into the Medieval, Aztec, Future, Industrial and Water Zones, all recreated with remarkable attention to detail. At times, it genuinely feels as though you've stepped back into the early 90's. Photo: The Crystal Maze Live Experience The experience begins in a sparsely decorated waiting room, where guests are shown a VHS-quality montage of clips from the original series. Focusing largely on the show's original host, Richard O'Brien, and his humorous asides as teams were focused on the challenges, it serves as a nostalgia-fuelled reminder for those who've seen the original series and a solid primer for those going in blind. The video's conclusion sees O'Brien briefly reprise his role as host to hand over the keys to the Maze to a new Maze Master, who then enters the room and introduces themselves. During our visit to the London version of the experience, our Maze Master was Banjo, a laid-back, sarcastic Australian who, inexplicably, pulled off wearing wrap-around sunglasses indoors with ease. After being asked to introduce ourselves and share our spirit animal (For us: a giraffe; for Banjo: a burrito, in case you were curious..), Banjo asked for a team name and for our group to select a team captain. Throughout The Crystal Maze Live, the Maze Master remains with each group for the duration, oversees which games each team will play, explains the rules, and leads teams through the disorientating warren of corridors and tunnels with a huge amount of energy. Regardless of which Maze Master you get, they act as a cheerleader for the team, spurring you on during the challenges, commiserating when things don't go to plan, and improvising based on the team's comments and observations throughout. To squeeze every ounce of fun possible out of the experience, we'd recommend bantering and joking with them whenever the opportunity arises, as you'll get back what you put in, and building a good rapport with your Maze Master will enhance nearly every aspect of the experience. Photo: The Crystal Maze Live Experience Once teams arrive in their first themed zone, the games begin, with the team captain selecting who will take on each challenge. Built into each room are hatches, where the rest of the team can look on and support their teammate - either with instructions or enthusiastic encouragement and cheers. Every challenge in The Crystal Maze Live falls into one of four categories - Physical, Mental, Skill and Mystery. Exactly what each game entails remains unknown until the player enters the space, and the range of challenges on offer across all five themed zones varies wildly, featuring everything from cryptic riddles and nursery rhymes to climbing walls and cannons. There are also far more games available than a team can complete in their allotted time, so repeat visits will likely provide new challenges. Unlike traditional escape rooms, where deciphering the objective can take several minutes, every challenge in The Crystal Maze can be understood in a matter of seconds. Though that's not to say they're always easy to complete... Photo: The Crystal Maze Live Experience One of the enduring joys of the original TV series was that, often, the teams were pretty useless when it came to the challenges. You'd regularly find yourselves screaming at your TV as teams failed to complete simple tasks and swear that if you were playing, you'd breeze through the challenges. Back in 2024, we discussed how confident we were going into Taskmaster: The Live Experience, only to be quickly humbled. It brings us no joy to share that history repeated itself with our visit to The Crystal Maze Live Experience... On more than one occasion, we managed to complete the challenge but failed to grab the crystal before leaving the room - something that our Maze Master took great pleasure in pointing out multiple times. Seemingly, every challenge throughout the venue is available to teams as they move from zone to zone, so the Maze Master can recalibrate the selection of games to ensure teams have a positive experience. In our case, a four-challenge run of losses was quickly followed by a sustained run of successes, likely due to Banjo taking pity on us and presenting us with easier challenges. While players thankfully can't get 'locked in' permanently if they fail to make it out of the room in time like in the original series, a crystal is deducted from the team's running total in exchange for their freedom, which adds an extra level of stress and jeopardy to each challenge. Photo: The Crystal Maze Live Experience Alongside the challenges, The Crystal Maze Live Experience has ensured that the transition from one zone to another matches the feel of the original series. While some are comically lo-fi, including a balance beam across a floor-projected lake ("Don't get your shoes wet", warned Banjo), others are far more elaborate. Entering the Aztec Zone involves sliding down a drop slide; while reaching the Ocean Zone requires climbing down a fairly lengthy ladder. Elsewhere, tunnels and crawl spaces connect different sections of the venue. They all add to the experience's persistent feeling of being constantly on the move, and when accompanied by the show's theme tune, cement the idea that guests have truly stepped into the original TV series. After completing the final zone, teams are led towards the experience's centrepiece - The Crystal Dome. With the amount of time inside the Dome dictated by how many crystals have been earned, teams can expect to get anywhere from 20 to 60 seconds to gather and bank as many silver and gold foil tickets as possible as they're blown around the space. It's a a loud and chaotic scramble to grab as many pieces as possible, with tickets swirling all around players, often moving at such a speed that they're impossible to catch. Photo: The Crystal Maze Live Experience Nostalgic, light-hearted and incredibly faithful to the original TV series, The Crystal Maze Live Experience captures the spirit and chaotic energy of the original series and translates it into an outstanding live experience. Whether you grew up watching the show or are only just discovering it for the first time, it's a hugely enjoyable 75 minutes that flies by almost as quickly as the foil tickets do. ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Crystal Maze Live Experiences runs on Shaftesbury Avenue in London and Lower Byrom St in Manchester. Tickets are priced from £47.00 per person in London and £39.00 in Manchester. For more information and to book tickets, visit the-crystal-maze.com

Image: House of Dreamers House of Dreamers, the first-of-its-kind immersive exhibition created by designers Elena and Giulia Sella, announces its London debut at Immerse LDN on Excel Waterfront, opening on 26th June 2026. After captivating more than 2 million visitors across global cities, the exhibition arrives in the UK for the very first time, with its dreamiest edition yet and the introduction of new AI-powered technology. This unique experience offers a new kind of cultural destination, spanning 16 breathtaking immersive installations across 27,000 sq. ft of London's newest entertainment district. House of Dreamers is an emotional journey into the world of dreams. Design, colour and technology come together to transport visitors into a magical unexpected world. Welcoming guests of all ages, the space is a unique place where guests' imagination comes to life, offering an opportunity to reconnect with their inner child and build unforgettable memories. Visitors are also invited to interact with bespoke AI-powered moments throughout the exhibition using House of Dreamers signature DreamBand technology, a wearable device that personalises each visit in real time, meaning no two experiences are alike. Andrea Cecchi, CEO of Postology, comments: London represents a strategic milestone for House of Dreamers and a key step in its international expansion. After Milan, Rome, Madrid and Paris, we chose London because it is one of the world’s leading creative capitals, where innovation, entertainment and international business converge and shape the future of immersive experiences. To bring this vision to life, we chose Immerse LDN at Excel - London’s newest immersive entertainment district and the UK’s largest destination dedicated to immersive entertainment. Its international positioning made it the ideal partner to host House of Dreamers on a global stage. Damian Norman, Director at Immerse LDN, said: We’re thrilled to welcome another internationally acclaimed experience to Immerse LDN and to be collaborating with the visionary team at House of Dreamers. In its short time since opening, Immerse LDN has brought more than 10 innovative immersive experiences to the capital, selling 1.7 million tickets and all showcasing London’s credentials as a global hub for immersive entertainment and activations. House of Dreamers will run at Immerse LDN near Custom House station from 26th June 2026. Tickets are priced from £21.90 for Adults and £15.90 for Children. For more information and to book tickets, visit houseofdreamers.com

Image: ScreamWorks Back in 2022, ScreamWorks burst onto London's immersive scene with Bloodbath - a boundary-pushing horror experience set inside a serial killer's house that had guests being force-fed, chased and physically restrained. It was an intense and divisive experience that was unlike anything else available in London at the time, and, according to ScreamWork's founder, Gary Stocker, so realistic that at least one reviewer initially refused to enter the building for fear of their life. In the following years, ScreamWorks continued to produce immersive experiences that lean heavily into horror. Their 2023 show, The Ghost Hunt, revolved around the bloody murder-suicide of the Luff family and had guests exploring multiple rooms and floors by torchlight, encountering former residents along the way. Subsequent productions, including Open House and Granny, have all combined escape room elements with extended periods of tension and scares, repositioning ScreamWorks as one of the city's standout immersive theatre/escape room producers. Their latest escape experience, The Briefcase, which runs out of ScreamWorks' Bethnal Green home, is a departure from their horror roots but retains all of the trademark inventiveness and originality the company is known for. The premise is simple: groups of up to 6 players are tasked with breaking into an abandoned building, retrieving a briefcase (the contents of which are a mystery), and escaping before the hour is up. Lasting just over an hour, The Briefcase has no live actors but places teams at the centre of the experience and plays out like a crime caper as guests work their way towards extracting the experience's eponymous briefcase. Image: ScreamWorks Along the way, groups come up against a series of wildly inventive puzzles that must all be solved in creative ways, an elaborate and claustrophobic maze that needs to be explored on hands and knees, moral choices that'll no doubt test friendships, and, like in any good heist film, a finale that flips everything that came before it on its head. We've enjoyed many of ScreamWorks' previous productions, and The Briefcase is no different. Highly engaging and wonderfully original, this new escape experience continues ScreamWorks' streak of one-of-a-kind production and shows that they can still pack a punch, even when they're not trying to scare their participants. Image: ScreamWorks ScreamWorks has always had a unique approach to onboarding, avoiding the familiar setup of game masters greeting guests on arrival. In The Briefcase, the experience begins outside of the venue and requires guests to take a leap of faith by climbing into the back of an unmarked van close to the venue - details of which are sent to guests on the day of their booking. Inside, a CCTV camera pointed directly at guests scans the van's interior as a pre-recorded voice instructs guests to lock their phones in a safe on the floor and provides instructions on how to break into a nearby house. While seeing a group leave the back of a van and attempt to enter a boarded-up house would likely be cause for concern to anyone looking on from the petrol station opposite, for those taking part, it's an immediate introduction to the world of the experience and throws guests straight into the action. Image: ScreamWorks With the building breached, The Briefcase takes on a more traditional escape room format in its opening rooms, with keypads and combination locks standing between teams and their goal. As is typical in ScreamWorks experiences, there's little in the way of a clue system for those who are struggling, and certainly nothing that would break the experience's immersion, so don't expect a voice of god to give you a hint if you're really stuck and wave your arms at the cameras. Inside the Security Office, teams need to reset a breaker to restore power to the building, which powers up the building's CCTV system and RFID locks. Environmental clues and hidden items are scattered throughout the space, which keeps the majority of the group occupied while others work on the breaker. A reveal on the room's TV screen once the power is restored effectively ramps up the tension as groups scramble to progress deeper into the building and gain access to a locked apartment on the building's first floor. As has been the case with previous ScreamWorks productions, The Briefcase places a heavy focus on making all of its spaces feel lived in, and the most unassuming pieces of set dressing often prove to be of massive importance. Image: ScreamWorks After progressing further into the abandoned building, The Briefcase requires a member of each team to break away from the group and move on their own through a network of tunnels on their hands and knees. With a blindfold and headphones on, they're given instructions by the rest of the group via a joystick that transmits pre-recorded audio instructions. Strong teamwork is essential here, as the team member on their hands and knees has nothing but those instructions to guide them through a complex maze with dead ends and multiple wrong paths. With the team's guinea pigs eventually emerging elsewhere in the building, teams must communicate via a two-way video system from here on out. There's a moral decision to be made for each team's solo player in isolation, which is livestreamed to the rest of the group, who are unable to weigh in on what they should do and watch on powerlessly. With the briefcase on a nearby table, all that stands between the group and freedom is a four-digit code. To work it out, both halves of the team need to exchange information via the cameras in both rooms. Depending on how well teams can communicate, this may well prove to be the most frustrating part of The Briefcase, as teams desperately try to convey information to each other through the video link, but some abstract thinking can ease the frustrations if both halves of the team are aligned. Image: ScreamWorks The show's conclusion sees groups emerge from the abandoned house and return to the unmarked van. It's only then, when all is said and done, that the true nature of The Briefcase reveals itself. It's an impactful rug pull that echoes Netflix's Black Mirror and successfully recontextualises everything groups have just experienced. While The Briefcase isn't the most elaborate experience ScreamWorks has ever put on, it's an engaging hour that provides some innovative puzzles for teams to work through. Given the typical level of scares and dread prevalent in their other work, The Briefcase is a great entry point for those who have always been curious about the company but have been apprehensive about just how intense their experiences typically are. When we first visited ScreamWorks back in 2022 for Bloodbath, we commented that it was one of the most intense experiences on offer in the capital at that time. While they're set to debut a walk-through horror experience later this year that'll no doubt terrify, this brief departure from horror shows that, regardless of genre, their work still surprises and entertains. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Screamwork's The Briefcase runs until 30th August in Bethnal Green. Tickets are priced from £40.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit screamworks.co.uk

Torches in hand, we venture into Bethnal Green's most haunted house to experience the latest show from London's top immersive horror producers. Halloween is an apt time for an immersive theatre company that specialises in horror experiences to return with a new show. Following up the 8-month run of Bloodbath, which occupied their venue located below the arches of Bethnal Green, Screamworks are back with a show that offers big scares and a compelling story for those willing to dive in head first... Set within the abandoned home of the Luff family, who all died in 1937 in a bloody murder-suicide, visitors are invited by paranormal investigator Hector Phoenix to explore the family home and uncover the story of what caused their horrific deaths to occur. Screamworks previous show blurred the boundaries of what is the norm in immersive experiences, with actors force-feeding and tying up visitors, and at its climax, attempting to undress those who have braved the show. It was an arresting experience for those who attended. The most confronting parts of Bloodbath saw visitors become complicit in the actions of a serial killer, and played with the ideas of voyeurism and torture being little more than entertainment for blood thirsty audiences. In our recent interview with Gary Stocker, the CEO of Screamworks, he shared how their commitment to creating the immersive experience may have put some visitors off by appearing too intense. Therefore, it's no surprise that The Ghost Hunt's website seems to promise a show that's less intense than Bloodbath, with no physical contact between actors and visitors, and a storyline that's sold as more spooky than gory. On paper, it may seem like a step away from the boundary-pushing experience that made their previous work so engaging, but in reality, The Ghost Hunt is just as intense and terrifying an experience, with dozens of moments that had us jumping, screaming and recoiling in fear. Upon entry, each visitor is handed a torch - it's largely up to them to find their way through the space and discover what's hidden inside the various dimly lit rooms that make up the 45-minute long-experience. Putting the responsibility onto visitors to find their own way helps ramp up the tension and makes going around every corner a frightening prospect. You're free to explore at your own pace, which allows ample opportunity to pore over the clues scattered throughout if you're so inclined. A section midway through the show allowed us to sit around a makeshift Ouija board as we quizzed one of the house's spirits on what had happened there nearly 100 years prior for as long as we liked. The show's cast of five, who can appear and disappear at a moment's notice through a maze of secret doors and hidden entries, keeps you constantly on edge. One moment towards the end of the show saw Hector Phoenix, the paranormal investigator who tasked us with exploring the house in the first place, appear behind us in a moment of complete darkness. Elsewhere, Geoffrey Luff - with a knife sticking out of his back as he's slowly dying of blood loss - cornered our group in one of the rooms as we were interrogated on what had become of his children. The key difference between Screamwork's productions and your run-of-the-mill scare experience is the ambitious storytelling. The Ghost Hunt tells a cohesive story that is drip-fed to guests across it's 45 minute duration. Through various newspaper articles and letters scattered across the show's 10 rooms, along with some set pieces that offer both scares and exposition, you leave the experience having learnt about the supposedly true history of the show's setting. Previously, we claimed that Screamworks would soon be the leading immersive horror creators in London. Based on the screams both from our group and the echoes of those elsewhere in the venue during our visit, they've delivered a show that confirms that theory, and we now feel they're hands down the top creators of immersive horror experiences in the city. While time is limited to experience this show before it closes on 31st October, future plans for the venue involve an escape room featuring live actors that will open in November. We'd recommend trying to get down there before this show closes, as it's easily one of the best scare attractions on offer in London this Halloween season. ★★★★ Screamwork's The Ghost Hunt runs from 5th October to 31st October in Bethnal Green. Tickets are available to book here.

ScreamWorks are back with The Ghost Hunt - their latest horror immersive experience in Bethnal Green. Following the success of their previous show, Bloodbath - which we reviewed earlier in the year, the creative team at ScreamWorks are swapping out serial killers for paranormal investigation for their Halloween offering. We recently spoke to Gary Stocker - the CEO of ScreamWorks, to discuss their new immersive experience, the success of Bloodbath, and their future plans for immersive horror offerings... Immersive Rumours: Hi, Gary. Thanks for speaking with us today. Would you mind introducing yourself and explaining a little bit about what inspired the creation of ScreamWorks? Gary Stocker: My name is Gary Stocker, and I am the CEO of ScreamWorks, although I would like to add from the outset that I am just one of a team of people, all of whom work tirelessly to produce our shows and build the ScreamWorks brand. I have been producing shows for the best part of 17 years. I originally trained as a lawyer, but after a brief stint in the City, I decided that corporate life was not for me. I had previously performed in Covent Garden as a street performer and worked as a professional magician, and decided that I would prefer to continue this kind of work, rather than to become a lawyer. I quit my job and shortly afterwards started a travelling circus, called Chaplin's Circus, which I toured for about 6 years. It was a narrative-driven circus in that the shows were always scripted and the cast always comprised both circus performers and professional actors. Our first show was called 'Backstage', and the audience was invited to watch a circus show from behind the curtains, learning about the history of a 1920s circus on the brink of bankruptcy and all the trials and tribulations of circus life. In the end, we rotated the stage, and the audience would watch the grand finale, in which I performed as a human cannonball! We sold the circus to a theme park in 2018, which was lucky timing in light of COVID and all that ensued. During my time as a circus proprietor, I engaged in a number of joint ventures to produce pop-up Halloween events. For example, we were involved in the Screamland launch in Margate and ScareNation's Dr Carnevil and the Circus of Fear was one of my productions - a very successful walk-through scare attraction in Watford (we had about 12,000 customers over a 2-week period). I love horror and Halloween, so I always knew that I wanted to produce more immersive horror experiences. In 2022, I worked with Claudio Cecconi and my business partner William Ravara to write my first show, Bloodbath. I was heavily inspired by Punchdrunk; while I wasn't a massive fan of the Burnt City overall (please don't hate me!), I love the scale of Punchdrunk's productions and the detailed set dressing. I was, however a little disappointed that some of the set dressing and props proved to be irrelevant to the story. I remember I found a set of headphones and put them on, but nothing played. There was a telephone, but it didn't ring. And lots of the books and exhibits, while detailed and 'in theme', had no discernible relevance to the narrative. When I left The Burnt City, I said to my friend, "I'm ready to start producing again Immersive Rumours: So, how did your experience of The Burnt City inform how you approached creating Bloodbath? Gary Stocker: My first production decision was that in my sets, everything will lead back into the narrative; I want to reward the curious. If you find a bottle of wine and have the balls to open it, enjoy! If you find some paintbrushes and want to create something, we will not stop you. For me, one of the main joys of the immersive format is that it gives us an opportunity to play. One of the early highlights of Bloodbath for me was when a customer opened the fridge and started to make themselves a ham and cheese sandwich using the ingredients they found around the house. It was not easy to make that happen. Each day I would position the ingredients in slightly different places to try to inspire customers to help themselves. I remember telling my control room to communicate with me urgently by radio the moment that they saw a customer making a sandwich. By day 4, it finally happened! Immersive Rumours: When you look at the wider industry, what do you think your shows offer that isn’t being done by other immersive productions? Gary Stocker: Our mission is to be the market-leading provider of immersive horror experiences. We want to create immersive experiences which are fully end-to-end immersive. Anything which can take you out of the story should be eliminated; with Bloodbath, that meant we couldn't have security at the door or staff checking tickets. Instead, we kidnapped our customers from the street and took them to the location; after all, a serial killer would not advertise the location of his home. We even extend the immersion into customer service if necessary. With Bloodbath, if you called the customer service number you would speak either to Jack, our serial killer main character, or Abel, his deranged but weirdly endearing brother. If you sent an email, Jack would be the one to reply. This worked really well. Lots of customers felt like they already knew the characters before they attended the event, even bringing unusual gifts for the characters, which was very sweet. Photos: Scremwork's Bloodbath This pre-show immersion worked well - perhaps too well! On one occasion, an immersive theatre critic, who had come to review Bloodbath, was standing outside the venue, refusing to come inside. [Editor's Note: It was not Immersive Rumours]. They called the customer service number and got connected directly with Jack. They demanded to speak to our customer services team - they wanted some reassurance that Jack was not a real serial killer and that they would not die if they entered the house. Of course, Jack could only confirm that he is a real serial killer and that there is no customer service team at Bloodbath - Just Jack, Abel and Mother! While this was very amusing and demonstrated that we had done a great job setting up the immersion of our narrative, in retrospect, we probably lost a lot of potential customers by being a bit too scary. However, the customers who were brave enough to step into Jack and Abel's crazy world loved this aspect of our show, so it is not a decision I regret. Immersive Rumours: We're a few days into The Ghost Hunt being open to the public - how has the process of getting the show to this point been? How did the experience of putting on Bloodbath influence the creation of this show? Gary Stocker: The set for the Ghost Hunt is by far the most elaborate set we have ever built. We have effectively built an entire 10-room house. We worked so hard to get it finished on time, and I am so proud of myself and my team. We learned a lot from Bloodbath, and so it certainly inspired the logistics of this event, but at the same time, the show itself is entirely different. Poster for The Ghost Hunt Immersive Rumours: Can you give us any hint about what to expect from The Ghost Hunt? Gary Stocker: The Ghost Hunt is a Halloween experience which takes place in the former home of the Luff family, all but one of whom lost their lives in a horrific murder-suicide on 31 October 1937. Armed with torches, guests are invited to explore this abandoned house to discover for themselves what happened on that fateful night. Unlike Bloodbath, The Ghost Hunt places responsibility on the guests to discover the story for themselves. There are no voiceovers to spoon-feed narrative and no traffic lights to regulate customer flow. This makes the show logistically far more challenging than Bloodbath, but we have an exceptionally strong cast of actors, playing the ghosts of the Luff family and their mysterious lodger, and these actors are available to guests to deliver narrative and to respond to the guests' questions and decisions. You really will get out of this show what you put into it. If you really engage with the set and the characters, you will find a fascinating and multi-layered narrative (as well as a few well-crafted jump scares to keep you on your toes). Immersive Rumours: What inspired the new show, and why did you choose not to immediately continue the story of Jack and Abel? Gary Stocker: Ghost Hunt is inspired by a number of true stories, which we have meticulously researched and conflated. Some of the characters and the story are inspired by personal events related to my own childhood. It's not uncommon for me to explore aspects of my own trauma through the work I create. Several aspects of Bloodbath were also inspired by my own childhood. Jack and Abel needed a break for a while; they had a good eight-month run and will be back next year, for sure. It's good to give people some time to miss them. We also want an opportunity to show the world what else we can do as a company and perhaps to appeal to a broader audience; as I said before, some people were too scared to attend Bloodbath because they feared they might actually be murdered!! Immersive Rumours: We remember attending Bloodbath and finding photos of our group from our social media pinned to the walls. Jack also greeted us by name at the climax of that show. It’s a level of intimacy and personalisation that helps draw visitors deeper into the world. Is that something you found audiences responded well to? Gary Stocker: Audiences loved this aspect of Bloodbath. It was exceptionally expensive and time-consuming to implement, but it was a very powerful mechanism for converting our guests from mere observers to direct participants in the story. The word 'immersive' is used a lot these days, often inappropriately. For me, an event is not really immersive unless you, as an individual, feel that you are part of the story and have the freedom to exercise autonomy and interact directly and personally with the characters. This is something which we will develop more in future productions, for sure. Immersive Rumours: You’re also running a more family-friendly show called Ghost Detectives throughout October. Can you tell us a bit about that show and why you chose to also do an all-ages show? Gary Stocker: When I owned Chaplin's Circus, I used to produce immersive experiences for children at Christmas time. One of my previous shows, called Ice Grotto Advent-ure, was entirely sold out across all UK locations. The concept was simple: Rudolph had lost his nose and, without it, could not fly. The children stepped inside a full-sized Advent calendar to go on an adventure (hence the name 'Advent-ture') to find it. The special effects were awesome. It was such a feel-good event, and we really convinced thousands of children that they had single-handedly saved Christmas! They would literally leave the event screaming. "I just saved Christmas!". On the face of it, Ghost Detectives is a very simple but poignant story about a young boy called Isaac who has lost his pet mouse Stripey, and does not want to 'cross over' until he finds him. The Ghost Detective Agency is recruiting young detectives to help solve this case. Unfortunately, the house is owned by a grumpy old man who hates children, so the guests have to find a way to trick the old man into letting them inside the house. The real quest is to discover why the old man is so grumpy and why he hates children; for me, this story is a bit of a tear-jerker, as the guests will discover a sad but beautiful truth, which is the key to reuniting Isaac and Stripey (and also the old man, with his wife, the love of his life). Immersive Rumours: What’s the future looking like for ScreamWorks? Are there already plans in motion for shows in 2024? Gary Stocker: These are tough times for everyone. Immersive theatre is expensive to produce because of the limited capacities and the low ratio between audience and actor numbers. I am pleased to say that we are managing to keep our head above water, and we work very hard to keep our prices as low as possible (our RRP is £45.00). We have some exciting plans for 2024, but as, always our main focus is on our current show, to ensure we deliver the best possible customer experience we can. We will launch an escape room format later in the year using the same set as Ghost Hunt, but we will release more information about that closer to the time. The Ghost Hunt runs from 5th October to 31st October in Bethnal Green. Tickets are available to book here. Ghost Detectives runs from 21st October to 29th October in Bethnal Green. Tickets are available to book here.

Photo: Natasha Mautone Next month, UNCLE BARRY's The Edge of Eden returns for two weekends at Portugal's Bela Colina. Part creative retreat, part immersive experience, the five-day-long gathering, which is open to all, combines workshops, communal meals and interactive performances to help attendees get into a creative headspace and recharge. Ahead of The Edge of Eden's return, we caught up with UNCLE BARRY's Ariana Aragon to discuss what last year's attendees took away with them, how the retreat came to be, and what the immersive performance portion of the retreat entails. Immersive Rumours: Hi Ariana! Thanks for speaking with us today. We sat down last summer to discuss Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party, but it's been a busy year for you and Mia since then. What have you both been up to? Ariana Aragon: Yeah, it's been a busy one, and varied too, which has been exciting. We took Uncle Barry's Birthday Party to Edinburgh Fringe, which went really well with the Fringe audience and allowed us to experiment with different endings that changed every night. We created a new immersive clubland piece, PLEASE, with Morgan Brame and Flora Lester, which was a non-verbal sound-led immersive piece that moves the audience through the visceral phases of a night out and explores the many facets of pleasure. Think sequins, heavy bass, sweaty dancing, euphoria, burlesque, and the like. We also launched our first Edge of Eden creative retreat last July with 14 guests in the mountains of Portugal. It exceeded our expectations and led to us hosting two weekends this year (more on that in a bit), alongside diving into some individual projects. Mia trained in Soho Theatre’s Cabaret & Drag Lab, creating the persona of Pork Shy, a nervous pig who’s afraid to get filthy, and I recently performed in Studio Zweklos' HMR-SEE as the CEO in a cult-like corporate performance-turned-dance party. We’re also working on our new participatory show, Yours Truly, born from a research inquiry into the ethics of participatory theatre. We're interested in power dynamics present in romance and mapping that to the relationship between audience and performer in participatory theatre. I came on board to direct in February, and we're excited to debut it in a couple of weeks at Format Festival and Voidspace Live 2026. Immersive Rumours: Alongside everything else you’ve been working on, you’re preparing for the second edition of The Edge of Eden, which is happening next month in Portugal. What can you tell us about the experience? Ariana Aragon: At its core, the retreat is a merging of the creative team's interests in facilitation, immersive theatre, and site-specific creation. Over their stay, guests get the benefits of a creative retreat but also the excitement and surprise of an immersive theatre show. By day, Eden functions as a creative retreat with playful, exploratory workshops designed to help guests shake off the rigidity of daily life and tap into a more open, creative state. Being on holiday in the Portuguese mountains obviously helps with that too. We build in downtime as well, with chef-cooked meals, a river excursion, and space to breathe and recharge between sessions. Then by night, guests are guided through an immersive retelling of Eve's journey towards liberation in the Garden of Eden, with each evening building on the one before and each night experiencing something different from the next. What we really like about the format is that it doesn't fit neatly into an existing category. It's not a wellness retreat, and it's not a rigorous creative retreat either. It’s an adventure. What we're really after is opening up creative awareness to see creative possibilities more easily and make unexpected connections. We also play with contrasts between day and night, discipline and indulgence, rest and letting loose, peacefulness and drama, and the narrative is what holds all of that together and gives it shape. Photo: Natasha Mautone Immersive Rumours: Who else is working on The Edge of Eden besides yourself and Mia? Ariana Aragon: The starting team last year was Mia, myself and Aidan Augustin, who is the founder of nonprofit marketing company Feathr and an immersive event enthusiast. We were also really lucky to have our friends from our programme at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama - Laura Monroy and Ariana Sacristan from Otherbox Theatre - alongside us to devise and perform. This year, the team has grown as we've brought on Daniela Mandoki (also from Otherbox) for sound design and Abigail Chase (also a Central alum) for dramaturgy and performing, which has added a really exciting new layer to the work. Boris Benzent, the co-founder of Bela Colina, has also been incredible in helping us customise the space for the retreat and has been a great partner in making the site work for what we're trying to do, rather than just a venue host, too. Immersive Rumours: You ran The Edge of Eden last year for the first time. How was that experience, and what kind of creatives ended up attending? Ariana Aragon: The project was ambitious, and although we were tying up loose ends behind the scenes during that first retreat, it somehow unfolded remarkably smoothly for the guests. We were all pleasantly surprised and a little in disbelief by how well it went for the guest experience, both creatively and logistically. It ended up being so heartwarming, too, because we really didn't anticipate how well the guests would connect with each other. To give a little snippet of what that looked like - by the final evening, after the facilitators had called it a night, the attendees ended up having a late-night karaoke session in the living room entirely on their own. We came downstairs to find 13 people belting 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' with Boris, the Bela Colina co-founder, beating a drum along to the tune. It was hilarious, and it felt like an oddly good sign of a successful event that they wanted to keep things going long after we'd wrapped. In terms of who came, it was a really lovely mix of working creative professionals like singers and actors; people who have a creative practice on the side; and then others who work in completely different fields like tech, research, or farming but were curious and open to trying something new. The workshops are built to work across all levels, so they translated well regardless of where people were starting from. We structure the workshops with the core belief that everyone is creative and that we all have creative instincts worth listening to, so it makes it easier for anyone with an open mind to join in. Photo: Natasha Mautone Immersive Rumours: Was there a particular moment, interaction, or response from attendees that made you realise the concept was resonating in the way you’d hoped? Ariana Aragon: One of the evenings includes a sensory den that guests can linger in late into the night or visit briefly before heading to bed. We weren't sure how long people would want to stay, especially after two full days of workshops and performances. Not only did everyone stay until the end, but we ended up extending it by an hour because the energy in the room was so alive. That night really highlighted what a retreat format can do for an immersive experience. When people have had days of being mostly phone-free, sleeping in a beautiful place that's completely outside of their everyday lives, and working through workshops built around openness, listening, and curiosity with each other, they arrive at the evening immersive experiences in a completely different state of readiness than an audience that's just walked in off the street. They were fully plugged into the moment. Immersive Rumours: As part of the retreat’s programme, there’s a series of creative workshops. Are they designed for creatives working in specific disciplines, or are they open to anyone interested in developing new skills and ideas? Ariana Aragon: They're open to anyone who wants to explore creative thinking and is interested in making new connections from what's in front of them. We draw a lot from improvisation and free association practices, which makes room for the creative instincts that everyone has, regardless of the level of training you’ve had. Whether you have a well-developed creative practice or haven't done anything structured since you were a kid, the workshops are built to be accessible to anyone willing to have a go. We move through a mix of movement, writing, drawing, improv, and, for those who want to incorporate it, music too. Photo: Natasha Mautone Immersive Rumours: One element of The Edge of Eden that differs from other creative retreats is the nighttime immersive performances. What do those consist of, and how participatory are they? Ariana Aragon: The nights follow a reinterpretation of Eve's experience as she moves through the Garden of Eden, starting from a kind of conditional, strings-attached existence towards liberation. Each evening runs around two hours, and the guest experience broadly maps onto Eve's own self-discovery journey, moving through themes of abundance, discipline, curiosity, indulgence, and freedom. The level of participation and audience agency shifts night to night based on the phase of Eve’s journey. Sometimes guests are primarily watching and listening, and other times they're interacting directly with the world. We work in a pretty atmospheric and sensory way. Guests aren't there to solve a puzzle, complete a game, or play a character, but rather to soak in the world and experience Eve's journey, with the freedom to dial up their interaction or expression as they desire. The world becomes a rich backdrop for their own protagonism in the space. I was inspired by Gry Worre Hallberg's Sensuous Society experience in Denmark, which is a 24-hour immersive world built around the concept of the poetic self: the inner poetic potential that resides in everyone, but which can be unearthed through the right fictional and creative environments. That philosophy runs through how we've shaped the guest experience, which is why the evenings tend to feel quite dreamy, atmospheric, and relational rather than driven by plot or task. Immersive Rumours: How did the idea for The Edge of Eden first come about? Had either of you been on creative retreats previously? Ariana Aragon: The seed was actually planted through our ultimate frisbee league (yes, really) that we play in. Boris, who co-founded Bela Colina, was in the same league and mentioned at the pub after one of our games that he was opening a retreat centre in Portugal and offered us the chance to test the concept in his space. I've always been drawn to the idea of 'offsite theatre' bringing worlds to life when we step outside of our everyday environment, and mixing that with our facilitation backgrounds and love for immersive and interactive theatre, so we started cooking up the concept pretty quickly after discovering the site. Though we didn’t have much experience attending retreats ourselves, we all had backgrounds in running large events and organising experiences for groups. Mia had facilitated adventure trips, I've put together company offsite retreats in corporate settings, and Aidan had organised community events in his nonprofit work and social circles. So there was a lot of practical knowledge in the room, in addition to our theatre-making and writing interests. Photo: Natasha Mautone Immersive Rumours: Besides the idyllic surroundings, what else about Bela Colina makes it an ideal place for this kind of work to happen? Ariana Aragon: When we visited it four months before our first retreat, we immediately felt like kids playing hide and seek, just exploring all the nooks and crannies of the property. It's been beautifully renovated and has a genuine calmness to it, but there are other corners of the site that carry a real sense of mystery and history. The grounds were formerly used as the gathering place for village parties. There's an old concession stand and a chapel with a clock tower where someone from the village still comes once a week to wind the bell. There are old structures scattered around that feel full of story. All of that texture made it very clear to us early on that whatever we made here had to have a shadowy, mysterious side to it as well. Immersive Rumours: Finally, what do you hope people who attend The Edge of Eden come away with? Ariana Aragon: We saw from last year that people left with a group of friends and a sense of creative community. It was clear to us last year that we’d facilitated an environment for connection, and ultimately, it was people’s growing friendships with each other that truly made the experience what it was. As well as this, we hope guests leave with a bit more wonder and childlike playfulness than they arrived with. The retreat helps people reconnect with their own creative possibilities, both within the workshops and the fictional world we've built around them. If someone leaves inspired to pick up a new project, or feels a little more open with a stranger, or a bit more curious about life when they leave, that’s a win for us. Photo: Natasha Mautone The Edge of Eden takes place at Bela Colina in the mountains of Arganil, Portugal, from 19th to 23rd and 25th to 29th June. The advanced rate is £495 per person, rising to £545 for the standard rate. Bed sharers receive £100 off per person. Both rates include a private room with a double bed for four nights, transfers to and from Porto airport, all chef-cooked meals (dietary requirements accommodated), and all daytime and evening programming. For more information and to register, visit unclebarry.live/edgeofeden