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Image: cirqueSaw For immersive fans, one of the few shining lights to emerge during the lockdowns and closures of 2020 was the rise of digital, at-home experiences. In the UK, recognisable names from the world of immersive, including Secret Cinema and Swamp Motel (nowadays they've dropped the 'Motel' and just go by 'SWAMP'), launched Zoom-based experiences that both thrilled and entertained, and for a while, the requirement to live in roughly the same geographical location as creators to experience their work faded away. In the years since, the quantity of digital-focused interactive experiences on offer has waned, but a select few companies have proudly carried on creating online-only work. cirqueSaw, which is made up of Nathan Leigh and Nicola Orabona, first launched in 2021 and has produced several notable remote theatre productions, including Void Main and POV: You Are An AI Achieving Consciousness. As part of 2026's From Home Fest , and fresh off the back of winning an IndieCade award , their rat-focused production labRats returns following previous work-in-progress performances across 2024 and 2025. In this browser-based remote performance, audience members take on the role of numbered laboratory rats and complete a series of cognitive tests to both earn treats and avoid 'the zappies'. Following the rats' discovery of a key, participants escape from the confines of their cages and are set loose to explore the wider facility. Image: cirqueSaw Throughout labRats, lab technician Mallory (played via audio by Orabona) issues instructions, guidance and warnings to the pack, while Leigh acts as stage manager, overseeing the show's interface. The entirety of labRats runs off a custom-built platform that's used across all of cirqueSaw's shows, and allows the audience to interact with the show's world and communicate with each other via an in-built text channel. Freshly equipped with neural implants that allow each rat to understand human voices and communicate with each other, the opening 15-minutes of labRats involves each participant responding to simple questions around colours and shapes to calibrate the system. With Mallory's instructions telling them to answer the same as their group (each rat is assigned one of four colours at the beginning of the experience), some hastily put-together plans are made by each group through the in-show text chat in the hope of receiving a treat. While there's an element of competition, with each group pitted against each other in an attempt to earn treats, there's little variety or challenge to these tasks once each group has established their game plan. Later in the experience, the rats find themselves freed and able to explore the facility, which comes by way of an ASCII-inspired map. There's an impressive number of rooms to inspect, each with wildly different features inside. From 2D arcade-style minigames complete with scoreboards and puzzles, to text-based adventure games and pre-recorded pastiches of silent films, it's clear that every corner of labRat's laboratory has been designed to be as distinct and unique from one another, and that for better or worse, there's far more content than any one audience member can experience in one session. Image: cirqueSaw Whether or not the freedom offered to audience members' rats in the show's second half lands for you is going to depend on how comfortable you are with directionless exploration. By design, there are no explicit 'objectives' to complete, nothing directing you towards a set end goal, and very little to reassure you that the path you're on will lead to a proper conclusion. In simple terms, labRats lets you do whatever you want, and doesn't hold your hand as you do it. It's up to you and your fellow rats to create your own experience. Those happy to explore the facility without a set goal in mind will find that the breadth of things to do can more than occupy their time. During our playthrough, we only scratched the surface of everything on offer, but digging through some cupboards unlocked some traumatic memories that our rat had tried to repress, the tunnels and drains below the facility provided a seemingly endless labyrinth that had us well and truly lost, and we uncovered a sideplot involving Nanbots that would require a whole other playthrough to get to the bottom of. For many, their go-to plan will be trying to escape the facility. labRats is more than happy to accommodate such desires, but coordination and teamwork between the rats will be required. During our session, roughly 18 other rats were running amok around the facility alongside us, making any progress towards that goal made by any one individual a hard thing to keep track of. At times, the free-roaming portion of labRats felt like unorganised chaos, to the point where several participants commented in the chat that they were unsure what they were supposed to be doing, and any information shared by others was quickly lost in the fast-moving in-world chat. Image: cirqueSaw With a surprising amount of narrative depth, endless pathways available for exploration, and the freedom to forge your own story, labRats offers up an experience that's happy to bend around your own will. For many, the amount of freedom on offer may leave them wishing for a tighter, more focused narrative, but that looseness feels like a deliberate choice rather than a shortcoming. It's an experience that's more interested in giving you the tools to create your own story, rather than forcing you down a predetermined path, and responds to your choices, regardless of what they are. ★★★ ½ labRats runs until 7th February 2026. Tickets are free of charge, with donations encouraged. To find out more and book tickets, visit cirquesaw.com

Speaking directly to the group with sustained eye contact and a serious expression, he refers to each situation unfamiliar to even the most die-hard fan, as it offers a glimpse into Dexter's future and a peek 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 .

Yippee Theatre's hilarious immersive drag panto 'Dead Hard' sees Nakablowmi Tower taken over by Hands Photo: Yippee Theatre Dead Hard, the debut production from Yippee Theatre, mixes adult panto, drag, parody We can't speak to what those recruited by Grubber many floors below have been up to, but our paths soon Once inside this main performance space, Dead Hard becomes a more traditional panto, with the audience Photo: Yippee Theatre By design, pantos are interactive, and the audience plays an important role in

If you visit at peak times, you may also find that most rooms are in use at times, though each game's limit for our inevitable return... ★★★ ½ Total score: 866 [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review

. ★★★ ½ Final Score: 1184 [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Boom Lab runs at 83 Rivington

. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Christmas at Backyard Cinema runs until 31st

Image: Creature/Peter Broughton This review contains descriptions of some events within Creature. For more reviews of immersive productions like Creature, check out our recent Immersive Reviews .

Photo: Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition This review is from the London run of Tutankhamum: The Immersive To find out more and book tickets, visit feverup.com For more coverage and reviews of experiences like Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition, check out our recent Reviews .

This outstanding collection of six five-minute-long plays are each performed for just one audience member at a time as part of Barbican's Scene Change season. Photo: Danny Bright As part of Barbican's Scene Change season, Landmark Productions and Octopus Theatricals' Theatre for One has arrived in the UK for the first time. Taking over a space within the lobby of the Barbican Centre, this free-to-attend experience does exactly what it says on the tin, offering up a five-minute-long play for one audience member at a time on a first-come, first-served basis. Precisely which of the six pieces each audience member will see remains a mystery until the dividing wall inside the custom-built, peep show-style booth slides open, revealing the performer on the other side. Those who want to see more than one performance must rejoin the queue and wait their turn before being admitted again, making an investment of time the only payment required to see the work. For this Barbican run, the one-act shows on offer have been penned by some of Ireland's biggest playwrights, including Enda Walsh, Mark O’Rowe, Joy Nesbitt, Marina Carr, Katie Holly and Louise O’Neill. Each differs wildly from the other and features everything from once-scorned lovers and insecure onlookers to otherworldly entities and desperate magicians. For our visit, we were lucky enough to experience O'Rowe's The Spur , Walsh's Cave and Nesbitt's Dear Rosa in quick succession (a privilege that's not lost on us), but to see just one of these three would more than justify the potential wait times, despite each only being a few minutes long. In O'Rowe's The Spur , Derbhle Crotty plays a woman who recounts an unexpected encounter in a shopping centre that unexpectedly provided her with some much-needed closure. Walsh's Cave gives a voice to a creature used to lurking in the darkness through Art Campion, and Nesbitt's Dear Rosa casts the audience member as Rosa Parks while Tishé Fatunbi's nameless character grapples to come to terms with their racial identity through a number of stark confessionals. Anyone who's been lucky enough to be selected for a one-on-one during one of Punchdrunk's masked shows or has attended immersive shows such as The Manikins: a work in progress , Undersigned or Creature will already be aware of just how powerful and intense being the sole focus of a performer's attention can be. Outside of the awareness that the performance only exists in that very moment for your benefit, the intensity of the moment is amplified by its intimacy, with the performer looking you directly in the eye mere feet away throughout. Without doing anything but watching on, you find yourself silently taking on the role of both a confidante and companion as the person opposite shares a piece of themselves with you. Every reaction, whether it be a laugh or nod or change in expression as you watch on, is seen and silently acknowledged by the performer, leaving you with nowhere to hide. Regardless of which play you see when you step inside the booth, you’ll walk away from Theatre for One having witnessed something that existed only for you. It's an intense and moving experience that distils theatre down to its essentials: a performer, an audience member, and a moment that lingers with you long after the door opens again. ★★★★★ Theatre for One runs at the Barbican Level G Hub Space until 22nd March 2026. The event is free to attend, with performers daily (excluding 16th March) between 12pm-3pm, and 5pm-8pm. For more information, visit barbican.org.uk

Created and designed by Nick Moran (now best known for Phantom Peak) and Dean Rogers (who had previously of the escape room before stepping into the room, and seeing familiar characters appear on screen - speaking

Ink is leaking from the ceilings, books are growing mouldy and covered in strange Rorschach test-like For more information and to book tickets, visit sageandjester.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like STOREHOUSE, check out our recent Reviews .

With our five-star review of Rhythm&Ruse already posted, it's time to see what tricks The Magician's Find out more about the show and book via magicianstablelive.com To stay up to date on news, previews and reviews of more immersive shows like The Magician's Table, follow us on Instagram .