Search Results

Champagne, acrobatics, and cabaret combine to make a riotous and sexy night out in semi-immersive show Sabrage, which recently premiered at Lafayette in King's Cross. Photo: Johan Persson Sabrage, the latest show from Australian producers Strut & Fret and Southwark-based Menier Chocolate Factory, has opened its doors at Lafayette in King's Cross. Taking over a space that up until now has primarily been a music venue, it's a champagne-soaked evening of acrobatics, cabaret, comedy, singing and lip-syncing that treats its audience like extensions of the show's eight-strong cast. Within Sabrage, champagne is a running theme. The show gets its name from the ceremonial technique of slicing off the top of a champagne bottle with a sabre - an act that fittingly opens the show - and presumably, there are crates of the stuff positioned backstage, given how much is sprayed, downed and decanted throughout the evening. Photo: Johan Persson Across two hours, the show offers guests the chance to witness some wonderfully choreographed numbers from both the ensemble and the likes of Skye Ladell, whose suggestive solo performance to 'Go F**k Yourself' by Two Feet has them silhouetted against a red backdrop. There are excellent musical performances from Rechelle Mansour peppered throughout and anxiety-inducing feats of acrobatics, including foot juggling from the incredibly skilled Emma Phillips, who balances and spins four parasols followed by a large wooden table on the soles of her feet. Christian Nimri's sharp rollerskating routine transitions into an impressively high-speed aerial hoop sequence, while acrobatic duo Kimberley Bargenquast and Flynn Miller close out the show's final act with a duo straps performance that sees them hang onto and off each other as they rapidly spin above the audience. It's moments like these in which the intimacy provided by Lafayette's size comes into its own. With so little distance between the performers and the crowd, the skill and expertise on display from the entire cast can be taken in and appreciated all the more. Photo: Roy J Baron While Sabrage isn't billed as an immersive experience, it's structure and design lends itself to being semi-immersive, and there are plenty of moments in which the cast and the audience interact. The performers can often be seen under a spotlight leaning over Lafayette's balcony above the crowd, hanging off ladders and ledges amongst the tables, or sitting in the laps of audience members with next to no notice. In between the main acts, the hosting duo of Remi Martin (the person, not the Cognac) and Spencer Novich offer up numerous moments of explicit humour and take great joy in roping in the audience as they weave around the space. There are grapes thrown from the venue's balcony into the mouths of audience members and the cast down below, some cringe-inducing impressions coaxed out of the audience by the duo, and during a show-stopping rendition of 'Non, je ne regrette rien' from a naked Martin, who uses his.. instrument... as an instrument behind a waist-high French flag, an audience member is called upon for help picking up and handing over microphones and lotions outside of Martin's limited grasp. Photo: Johan Persson There are also a couple of big set-piece moments in Sabrage that directly involve the crowd. An on-stage pillow fight quickly spills out into the stalls, with plumes of feathers flying everywhere as performers and audience wage cushioned war against each other, and later in the show, Martin and Bargenquast, champagne bottles in hand, hang off the end of a rotating pole that spins over the crowd as bubbles fill the room. Audience members' empty champagne flutes are topped up by the pair from directly overhead, and in a moment that feels ripped from the opening of Babylon, one guest has champagne poured directly into their mouth from 10 feet in the air before Bargenquast spins away to top up more glasses. Immersive elements aside, Sabrage is a wonderful show that'll likely leave you smiling ear to ear. With some great adult humour, provocative moments and impressive feats of acrobatics on display, it ticks all the boxes for a great night out. For those looking to scratch that immersive itch with a new piece of work, there are also plenty of fun interactions for both individuals and the wider audience to engage with that feel tailor-made to ensure everyone leaves happy. Raise a glass! ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Photos: Johan Persson/Matt Crockett Sabrage runs at Lafayette in King's Cross. Tickets are priced from £25.00 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com

Guests step into a war-ravaged world and take control of their own digital avatar in DARKFIELD's latest immersive audio experience, Arcade. Photo: Kate Edwards After only a few months away from the capital, DARKFIELD has returned with a short residency at Shoreditch Town Hall. Their takeover of the Town Hall basement venue, The Ditch, is made up of three in-person debuts for DOUBLE, VISITORS and ETERNAL, which all previously premiered under the company's digital DARKFIELD Radio banner, and their latest show ARCADE, serves as the 'headliner' of the event. DARKFIELD is best known for creating 360-degree sound experiences delivered through headphones such as FLIGHT, COMA and SÉANCE, which use binaural audio, intricate sound design, sensory effects and complete darkness to immerse guests in intense audio-based shows that typically take place in their trademark shipping containers. Photo: Kate Edwards For the first time in a DARKFIELD experience, guests now have the agency to decide how their story unfolds. Taking control of Milk, an amnesic avatar dropped into the middle of an ongoing war between the North Block and South Block, guests respond to questions and prompts by pressing the single button on the panel of their individual arcade machine to answer 'Yes', with no response signalling 'No'. In addition, there's a coin slot and return tray to facilitate 'paying' for items such as guns and access to areas that are otherwise off-limits. They're all pretty limited ways of interacting with the story as it develops, but for something so basic, the paths it leads you down are branching and varied. Within ARCADE, these 'Yes' or 'No' decisions can have drastic consequences. A wrong answer can result in your avatar being killed at a moment's notice (something we found out less than a minute into our playthrough), and the trajectory of your story can veer off in a wildly different direction from what other guests are experiencing without you even realising how it happened. Photo: Kate Edwards Violence is near enough guaranteed within the world of ARCADE, regardless of whether you try to be a pacifist or mercenary, and with every bullet fired comes some practical effects built into the arcade machine that remove the barrier between what you hear and what you feel. There's a tension and anxiety built into the show's sound design that only amplifies as you get deeper into the experience, and every decision begins to carry more weight. Across the board, the voice acting is well done - Milk's emotionless, simple replies raise questions around just how desensitised they've become to the world around them, despite only just spawning in, and the wide range of creepy and opportunistic characters Milk meets along the way all carry an off-putting air to them. Photo: Kate Edwards It'd be redundant of us to give details on exactly what happened to our avatar during our time with ARCADE, as everyone's experience will differ greatly, but it's worth noting that the tone of this experience is much darker than any of DARKFIELD's previous work. Offhandedly, characters will offer up activities or new paths that'd turn heads and have the police called if said outside the confines of your headphones. The show's setting - a dystopian world in which the lives of people hold little value - goes some way to explaining why the characters Milk encounters are so void of empathy or compassion, but it's nonetheless surprising to hear people talk about shooting animals and children in the same way we'd suggest grabbing a coffee. Photo: Kate Edwards For completionists who want to explore every narrative diversion and unlock every possible situation, ARCADE might present a challenge with its limited run-time and expansive list of branching storylines. If you're happy to let your coins fall where they may and not stress too much about what you've missed out on, ARCADE is a unique and unsettling half-hour in a dystopian nightmare. Time will tell if DARKFIELD chooses to continue offering guests the same level of agency available in ARCADE, but if the choice were presented to us, we'd be tapping the button on our arcade machine. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] ARCADE is playing at Shoreditch Town Hall alongside three other DARKFIELD audio experiences until 17th April 2025. To book and find out more info, visit shoreditchtownhall.com For more reviews of experiences like DARKFIELD's ARCADE, check out our recent Reviews.

We grab our Orbs of Interaction and step into the Nether for Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue - a new immersive experience based on the best-selling video game. Photo: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue Minecraft, the open-world sandbox game adored by kids worldwide, is far and away the best-selling video game of all time. In 2023, it was confirmed to have crossed over 300 million sales, massively outselling its closest rival, Grand Theft Auto V, by around 125 million sales, and despite being 14 years old, it has a monthly player count larger than the population of most countries. While fans of Minecraft around the world had been eagerly anticipating the opening of A Minecraft Movie, those in London had another reason to be excited: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue has also just opened. Following a successful run in Dallas last year, this immersive Minecraft experience has its UK & European premiere at Corner Corner - a new venue in what's quickly becoming one of the defacto locations for new immersive experiences in London - Canada Water. Photo: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue Aimed primarily at families, Villager Rescue invites guests to step into the Minecraft universe, where they're tasked with saving a group of villagers who have been infected by a zombie horde. Taking on the role of heroes, guests must work to craft a cure before time runs out while going through seven different rooms that are lifted directly from the game's diverse world. It all begins with the Orb of Interaction - a glowing handheld device that acts as a multi-tool throughout the experience. With the flick of a wrist, it's able to chop down trees, craft items, open chests, fight mobs, act as a bow and arrow and sword, and transport resources. Following an introductory video featuring a duo of Minecraft characters, Tobin and Dayo, guests enter a woodland-themed training room to learn how to use their Orbs first-hand. Photo: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue With 360-degree projections on the walls and floor being rendered live in Unreal Engine, guests interact with the environment by waving or shaking their Orb of Interaction when standing on marked spots and can pick up items projected onto the floor by stepping on them. What these actions do depends on which item on the projected screens becomes highlighted - a tree will be chopped down for wood, an enemy knocked onto their back and despawned. The responsiveness of this project game world is pretty good, though sometimes you'll find yourself waving the Orb with nothing happening as a result. In what would soon become a running theme of our visit to Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue, the younger visitors in our larger group were running around collecting wood and stomping on projected apples with speed and dedication while the adults in the group took a more laid-back approach to resource gathering, likely aware that we'd need to preserve our energy for what was to come. With training complete, Tobin and Dayo guide guests through crafting tools and weapons by tapping their Orbs on chests or furnaces to collect resources and then placing them into the correct crafting table slots. It's a frantic game in which each crafting table is scored individually, allowing some light-hearted competition between guests. All of those resources are later used to expand and grow the village, which is presented on touch-screen displays in the following room. Photo: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue Those already familiar with Minecraft will likely be aware of what happens to the village once nightfall comes - a zombie siege spells disaster for the village population and gives guests their quest for the remainder of the experience: save the villagers (hence the experience's title..) Moving through different Overworld biomes, including a forest, tundra, and mines, guests continue to gather further resources by using their Orbs of Interaction to open chests, chop down sugar canes and beat up spiders. At the show's midpoint, the most complicated room (for those unfamiliar with the game) has guests crafting Obsidian to build a portal into the Nether by combining water and lava. The Obsidian is transferred onto a portal until it fully lights up, which allows us to move out of the Overworld. Throughout the experience, there are a dozen or more real-world objects - like the portal - that respond to guests Orb's, which adds a much-needed element of tactility to the otherwise projection-heavy experience. Photo: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue From there, it's a hop, skip and jump across a floor made of lava to fight a mob in an arcade-style game that has guests throwing felt 'snowballs' at a projection of Wither Skeletons, Zombie Pigmen and finally, Blaze, in a fire-filled landscape. Regardless of people's familiarity with Minecraft, this portion of the experience is the most engaging and fun - it's also the only section that the Orbs are needed for. The previously mentioned energy conserved by the adults in our group was all but expelled following this section, with numerous comments about the experience being like a workout between older visitors. The younger guests showed no signs of flagging though... Rounding off the experience, all of our gathered resources are brewed into a potion to save the villagers, with a practical Brewing Stand letting off smoke to show its completion. All visitors to Villager Rescue, regardless of age, are given a unique 25-digit code to redeem a Minecraft Experience Digital Cape in-game, which is a nice souvenir of their visit for Minecraft players. Photo: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue Judging by how much fun the younger members of our group were having, Villager Rescue delivers exactly what it promised: an opportunity for fans to step into the world they've spent countless hours exploring digitally in real life. While the experience might not convert non-gamers, it's packed with dozens of nods and small references to the original game that will delight long-time players. The opportunity to run around and play within such a faithfully crafted environment will also have a lot of younger die-hard fans smiling from ear to ear. If you have kids who love Minecraft, you probably don't need this review to tell you if they'll enjoy it - as they almost certainly will. For adults who are unfamiliar with the game and are without kids, the likes of Immersive Gamebox or Escape Arcade will likely offer a more rewarding (though equally exhausting) experience. Photos: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue runs at Corner Corner in Canada Water until 4th January 2026. Tickets are priced from £27.00 for Adults and £22.00 for Children. To find out more and book tickets, visit minecraftexperience.com/london For more reviews of immersive experiences like Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue, check out our recent reviews.

The smash-hit immersive exhibition depicting Tutankhamun's journey into the afterlife arrives in the UK for a 14-week run at Immerse LDN. Photo: Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition This review is from the London run of Tutankhamum: The Immersive Exhibition In 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter uncovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. That discovery - which is regarded as one of the 20th century's most significant archaeological finds - quickly turned the little-known pharaoh into one of the most famous people in the world some 3,000 years after his death and sparked an interest in Ancient Egypt previously not seen by the general public - a phenomenon dubbed 'Tutmania'. Now, a little over 100 years on from Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition has arrived in London for a 14-week run at Immerse LDN below the Excel Centre. The exhibition has been on a world tour over the last few years and has already surpassed over 1.8 million visitors - a staggering number that shows the public's interest in Tutankhamun is as strong as ever. A mix of 360-degree immersive projections, virtual reality, and holograms alongside more traditional displays of replicas, Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition promises to transport visitors back to Ancient Egypt in a way those who have attended previous exhibitions on King Tut could only have dreamed of. Photo: Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition The opening rooms of Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition looks a lot like any other museum exhibition. Large wall-mounted panels provide information and context about Tutankhamun, their place in Egyptian civilisation, and their lineage; glass cabinets house numerous objects, and in the centre of the room is a golden funerary mask and sarcophagus. While nearly all of the items on display at this exhibition are, in fact, replicas (the originals are now part of a permanent collection at the Great Egyptian Museum in Giza), they give you an appreciation for the care and detail put into all the objects left to help the pharaoh on his journey into the afterlife. Further into the exhibition, the focus shifts to Howard Carter and explores his life leading up to and following the discovery of the tomb. Most of his excavations were funded by English aristocrat George Herbert, who had provided Carter with one final season's worth of funding just prior to the tomb's uncovering. Replicas of Carter's meticulous notes and sketches from that time are on display, which demonstrates just how methodically they worked after their discovery. Every item was catalogued, and blueprints of the tomb's layout and contents were documented with care and precision - something that was often far from the norm at the time. Photo: Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition The exhibition's main space, which offers 360-degree projections, lies behind a curtain at the far end of the traditional exhibition space. In stark contrast to some of the small trinkets and sheets of paper in the previous rooms, everything in this space is writ large. Standing 8 metres tall, the four walls of the space display an ever-changing series of bright, colourful, Instagrammable animations on a 30-minute loop. It's by far the most impressive part of Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition, and will be the space visitors will likely spend most of their visit in, but it's worth noting that once visitors enter this room, the vast majority of the exhibition's educational information is now behind them. Broken up into eight chapters, covering everything from the origins of Egypt, the discovery of the tomb and the Egyptians' beliefs in life after death, the visuals constantly shift and evolve as they progress through each chapter. Nearly all of the content on offer in this room is abstract, and there's no storyline or dialogue to follow besides a brief chapter made up of footage from archival British Pathé newsreels. While the highlight of this section is Tutankhamun's journey into the realm of Osiris, in which the camera rapidly flies along the River Nile as the pharaoh journeys into the afterlife, we'd recommend staying in the space for the full 30-minute loop to get the most out of it. The room's size is quite stunning and truly engulfs your vision, absorbing you into the experience. Photo: Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition Later in the exhibition is the first of two virtual reality scenes. With visitors wearing their own headsets and seated on a swivel chair, they're free to look around as they again follow Tutankhamun's journey into the afterlife. Anyone familiar with the VR sections of Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience will notice some similarities, with constantly shifting vantage points and scenes on offer as you soar through the sky. After narrowly avoiding rivers of molten lava, the climax of this scene has Tutankhamun having his soul weighed against a feather - a judgement that will decide his fate in the afterlife. VR headsets later return for another scene, which allows visitors to step into the Metaverse and explore a virtual space on foot. Starting in Howard Carter's excavation camp, they're soon transported into the tombs below. This scene works in the same way as Horizon of Khufu, a VR experience that allows visitors to explore virtual renderings of the Giza Plateau and the Great Pyramid of Giza. Walking around this space alongside a dozen or more Howard Carter avatars, all gliding around without an expression adds some light-hearted humour to this portion of the exhibition, even if it's unintentional. Photo: Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition For many years now, London hasn't been short of immersive experiences that use projections. Long before the likes of Lightroom and Frameless opened, Immersive Van Gogh showed that there's a continued appetite for these kinds of experiences. In recent years, there's been a notable shift towards more educational immersive projections, with the likes of The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks at Lightroom and the BBC Earth Experience in Earl's Court leading the way. This exhibition feels like the next step in that journey, with history being presented on a scale not often seen. While there's constant debate around just how 'immersive' these kinds of experiences really are, they undoubtedly offer a modern, engaging way to learn about the world around us that's not always possible in traditional museum spaces. Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition manages to strike a balance between being both educational and entertaining and is an enjoyable couple of hours for families and groups looking to learn (a bit) more about Ancient Egypt, their views on eternal life, and the legacy of the boy king. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition runs from 28th March to 29th June 2025 at Immersive LDN, Excel London, and will be at SEC Glasgow between 24th July and 26th October 2025. 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.

2023's best immersive show returns in an expanded form, bigger and better than ever before. Bacchanalia is an unmissable piece of immersive theatre. Photo: Akil Wilson When Bacchanalia was first staged at Crypt in Bethnal Green back in 2023, it was a sensation. Off the back of a cast made up of some of the immersive scenes most recognisable faces and the promise of a fresh take on the Greek tragedy, the show's initial run sold out in just over two weeks - long before the doors to Thebes opened. It was an intense, intimate, and unforgettable immersive experience that proved the next generation of immersive creators could deliver shows as impactful and memorable as Punchdrunk has been doing for so long, with a fraction of the budget and resources. When we reviewed the initial run of Bacchanalia, we called it the best immersive show of 2023 and said Sleepwalk Immersive had 'captured lightning in a bottle'. With this 2025 version of Bacchanalia, which is playing at Hoxton Hall until 6th April, Sleepwalk Immersive has outdone themselves. Expanding the show with additional storylines, characters, more one-on-ones, and a hell of a lot more space, their adaptation of Euripidies' The Bacchae has improved on the version presented at Crypt in every possible way, and they've delivered one of this year's must-see immersive shows. Photo: James Lawson Bacchanalia tells the story of Dionysus - the god of wine, pleasure, and theatre - returning to their birthplace of Thebes. Angered by the city's refusal to acknowledge their divinity and seeking to punish those who wronged their mother, the arrival of Dionysus throws the House of Thebes, made up of the recently inaugurated Mayor Pentheus and their mother Agave, into chaos as they struggle to keep the god's influence over the city and themselves at bay. The audience, who all wear black hooded cloaks for the duration of the 90-minute show, has the freedom to explore the venue and follow whichever characters they wish. Sleepwalk's adaptation of The Bacchae has a distinct 1960s influence. There's a direct comparison being drawn between the rapidly growing chorus of Bacchae that Dionysus has under their spell, full of those happy to cast aside societal expectations in favour of ecstasy and radical freedom, and the Nixon-era counterculture movement that rejected mainstream culture, embraced free love, and came to define a generation. Further reinforcing this aesthetic, posters scattered around the venue for Pentheus' mayoral run that bear a striking resemblance to those Richard Nixon had during his campaign, a soundtrack made up of songs from the era, and several costume designs that have seemingly been ripped straight from '69 Woodstock all help tie together the image of '60s Americana. Photo: James Lawson In comparison to the show's previous outing at Crypt, the move to Hoxton Hall has afforded the show some much-needed breathing room. Within the tight confines of Crypt, there was a sense that Bacchanalia's story was far bigger than the space available - it was an epic story, forced into being told at a small scale. With their upgrade to the much more spacious Hoxton Hall, the story now has a venue far better equipped to contain it. Thematically, it's a wonderful match for a narrative about Dionysus - the god of theatre - and being able to explore the seldom-seen backstage areas of such a venue is exciting enough in its own right, but it's made all the more exciting when it's packed full of world-class performers and an audience eager to chase after them. Of course, with that increased space comes a change to how audiences will experience the show. Spread across all four floors of the Grade-II listed building, there's a lot more navigation of tight hallways and corners needed to keep up with everything going on in Thebes. It's impossible to catch everything in one visit, but for fans of Punchdrunk's work, it's no doubt a welcome return to the familiar feeling of being lost in a labyrinth of stairwells and corridors with intense FOMO. Exploration of every corner of Hoxton Hall is highly encouraged, even if it's just to avoid finding out later that there were entire areas of the venue you missed out on (something we realised had happened to us after the show...). Photo: Akil Wilson For half the audience, their introduction to Bacchanalia begins on the top floor with Agave (Fania Grigoriou), who's awoken from a nightmare and slowly begins to get ready for her son to be sworn in as Mayor of Thebes. At the same time, several floors below, Pentheus (Christian Loveless) is sitting with an old friend, Tiresias (Fionn Cox-Davis), who's recently returned to the city and brings with him news about the 'divine crusade' he had been tracking on his journey home. Pentheus, who's on the verge of being officially made mayor, is dismissive, believing that Dionysus (Peter Broughton) is neither a god nor a threat to the citizens of Thebes. It'll come as little surprise that Dionysus is, in fac,t both, and the city will soon be succumbing to his wishes. Photo: Akil Wilson Nearly all of Bacchanalia's biggest moments, including Pentheus' inauguration as mayor and the show's climactic final moments, now take place both on the raised stage and in the centre of Hoxton Hall's Main Hall. With a two-tiered balcony overlooking the space, audience members can view these scenes from up in the gods or experience them up close on the ground floor as if they were citizens of Thebes. Having the space to let these key scenes spread out over a much larger area than at Crypt makes it far easier for audiences to get a clear vantage of what's happening, and the space's verticality allows moments like the arrival of Dionysus (Peter Broughton), who first appears under a spotlight on the first floor before sprinting through the balcony seating and down the stairs onto the ground floor, to shine. There's also a whole host of moments that happen in the small confines of Hoxton Hall's backstage area that weren't present in the show's previous outing. Tiresias, who makes use of every surface and ledge throughout Hoxton Hall's stairwells as they traverse the venue's multiple floors, is a wonderful expansion on the similar scenes in Bacchanalia's Crypt run, which were limited to a small staircase at the rear of the main space. As for the power struggle between Dionysus and Pentheus, the wonderfully tense interrogation scene between the pair, which now takes place behind a closed door for a select few, is a highlight. With Pentheus believing he has the upper hand over a disguised Dionysus, his confidence and self-righteousness are felt with every line, right up until Dionysus' voice settles back into its usual cadence and the mask drops. Photo: James Lawson Nymph (Ruth Howard) and Xanthias (Jordan Ajadi), who make up the chorus of Bacchae and are never far from Dionysus' side, both move around the venue with abandon and grace thanks to Howard's excellent movement direction. The pair twist and throw their bodies in symmetry, perfectly encapsulating their devotion to Dionysus, who will often command them with the flick of a wrist or pointed finger. For Agave, their slow descent into becoming one of Dionysus' followers is portrayed brilliantly by Fania Grigoriou, who sells the enchantment Agave finds themselves under in the latter half of the show with zero inhibition and plays the family matriarch with warmth and love in the first half - something that makes their actions in the show's final moments all the more impactful. The biggest additions to the show's story come in the form of Semele (Maya McQueen) and their former lover, Zeus (played by Rob McNeill), who is the only new character added for the Hoxton Hall run. While Semele was present in the Crypt version of Bacchanalia, their story has been expanded considerably, with numerous scenes in which Zeus and Semele tenderly push and pull against each other, as well as moments where Semele can silently observe the citizens of Thebes. Photo: James Lawson Bacchanalia has been a project seven years in the making for Sleepwalk's Artistic Director Sebastian Huang. From humble beginnings as a show for one audience member first conceived during his studies, through to the two sold-out runs at Crypt and now, taking over Hoxton Hall, it's clear that his passion for adapting The Bacchae into an immersive form has borne fruit. Bacchanalia is an unmissable immersive show that's up there with the best work London has to offer, and with this latest iteration of the show, the Sleepwalk team have firmly established themselves as some of the city's best new creators. ★★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Bacchanalia runs at Hoxton Hall until 6th April 2025. Tickets are priced from £54.00 and can be purchased here. For more information about the show, visit sleepwalkimmersive.com

Leo Doulton's collection of highly improvisational, operatic shows gives audiences the chance to influence and shape their wyrd worlds in unique ways. Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton The Uncanny Things Trilogy is a series of shows fusing immersive theatre with operatic performance. Set within a world very similar to ours, each show invites audiences to come face-to-face with an Uncanny Thing, a supernatural being that has the power to change and shape the world around it in both positive and negative ways. Through a series of rituals, bargains, and deals, audience members are given the freedom to decide how each show unfolds, with the consequences of those choices potentially impacting the other shows in the trilogy. With a cast of five performers, all of the cast's dialogue is delivered through improvised song, though the audience is under no obligation to also sing. Taking place across several tunnels beneath Southwark Bridge at COLAB Tower near London Bridge, the audience takes on the role of local residents who are there to help decide how best to manage the power and influence the Uncanny Things have over the borough and its residents. Over the course of three evenings, we attended all three shows in the trilogy, which includes Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (first performed at COLAB Tavern in 2022), Come Worship Our Uncanny King (first performed as part of Voidspace Live 2024), and Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (which debuted at COLAB Tower during this run). All three shows put the community in a different position of power against the Uncanny Things and offer unique ways of interacting with and shaping the world. Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton While the trilogy can be approached in any order, Come Bargain With Uncanny Things acts as the logical introduction to this wyrd world. With deep lore, a whole host of mechanics and information to quickly get your head around, and a sense that the decisions made by audiences can have real consequences (both positive and negative), it may initially be an overwhelming experience for those who are unfamiliar with the kind of folklore that deals with fae, changelings and hellkins. At the start of the show, the community is presented with two requests from local residents that they need to investigate. During our visit, these included an elderly woman hoping to be granted more time to connect with her family before passing and a blossom tree whose glowing leaves were concerning those who lived nearby. In order to deal with these requests, the audience must get advice and guidance from Guildmaster McCall (CN Lester), The Wyrd Gazer (Amy Kearsly), and Carol (Sarah Griffin), the local council representative, as to how best to approach the unwieldy Uncanny Thing, who will seek out any loophole possible to push back against the community's demands. For the community to achieve what it wants, it needs to stay on top of what's happening in all corners of the space. Come Bargain With Uncanny Things (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Those working with The Wyrd Gazer must plan and enact small rituals to gain valuable information from the Uncanny Thing, as well as solve puzzles to craft potions that temporarily change the Uncanny Thing's form. This informs how those working alongside Guildmaster McCall approach the Uncanny Thing for the larger invocations to solve the community requests, as that valuable information on its true nature informs how best to approach it. Those creating small, handmade offerings for the Uncanny Thing need to also be aware of any new information gained from the other groups so its likes and dislikes can be taken into account when trying to win its favour. Audience members who have experience playing games like Dungeons & Dragons or regularly do roleplaying games will likely find it easier to get their heads around all of this information, but those who haven't dabbled in those worlds may at first be overwhelmed and confused about how to best approach these tasks. Given the improvised nature of each performance's narrative, which again is based entirely on what the audience decides to do, missteps can have fairly costly ramifications. This cycle of receiving requests, planning offerings, potions, and rituals repeats three times across the course of Come Bargain, giving the audience time to get their head around the show's intricacies. By the third and final request of the evening, our audience had seemingly mastered their respective roles, which allowed us to temporarily communicate with the recently deceased Angela, the elderly woman whose initial request we had not chosen at the beginning of the evening. Helping her children get some much-needed closure was a fittingly poignant ending to the show, and it showed that helping the individuals within a community can be just as meaningful as helping the collective. Overall, the tone of Come Bargain balances being both ominous and haunting, yet inviting. CN Lester and Amy Kearsly's operatic, improvised performances throughout the show, which take the form of both individual pieces to smaller groups and as a duo during the invocations, go a long way to creating this atmosphere. Often, the pair's ethereal hums will echo throughout the space, acting as a backing for the snarls and growls coming from the Uncanny Thing (Leo Doulton), which remains bound within a circle at the far end of the space for the show's duration. Come Worship Our Uncanny King (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton The second show in the Uncanny Things Trilogy, Come Worship Our Uncanny King, is much lighter fare. With the Uncanny King sitting atop a throne in the centre of the space, the community is there to give praise and thanks to the supernatural ruler. There's no justice being sought, no scheming and underhand tricks to be wary of, and no duty to do right by anyone other than the King. We have found ourselves in their court, and we are there to entertain them. Structurally, the show shares a lot of similarities with Come Bargain, though the stakes are a lot lower and the mechanics are simpler. The audience once again splits off into smaller groups to work on various activities against the clock, which are later presented to the Uncanny King. Those into arts and crafts will naturally be drawn to creating offerings with Adorer (CN Lester), while elsewhere in the space, the community will also work on creating short processionals such as toasts, hymns, and performances with The Master of Processionals (Hester Dart) that highlight the best qualities of the Uncanny King. Additionally, debates on a selection of topics decided by the King give the community further chances to pander to the King's ego, with them making the final ruling on whose argument was the strongest. Come Worship Our Uncanny King (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Come Worship Our Uncanny King is billed as a comedic farce, which is fitting. With much less of a focus on trying to help the wider community of Southwark, the cast has much more room to play with the audience's suggestions and build upon their light-hearted creations. During our visit, an offhand comment about us having a pair of cats at home quickly spiralled into an extended dialogue throughout the court about their virtues, which culminated in an improvised choir of operatic meows from CN Lester and Hester Dart. Given so much of the show's content is decided by the audience's choices, cats became a running theme throughout the rest of the performance, with both audiences and cast harking back to these moments throughout the evening. Later in the show, following a suggestion from the King that they'd like to see us create a competition in their honour, a wordplay-based game was presented to the court, with all of the participants, including a wordless Silent (Sarah Griffin), who took part with gestures instead of words, slowly bowing out to let the King win. It was a sycophantic decision from the audience to throw the game in the King's favour, but it was rewarded handsomely with boons, which allowed the King's court to have their wishes and desires granted. Come Worship Our Uncanny King (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Rounding off the trilogy, Come Murder An Uncanny Thing sees the community return to seeking justice for the people of Southwark. With The Vigilante (Amy Kearsley) having bound an injured Uncanny Thing, the group must decide what to do with the dangerous being now in their control. From the outset, it's made clear that the Uncanny Thing has caused great pain to the people of the borough, with direct mention of the events that unfolded in Come Bargain, and the show's central tension is formed around the question of whether we should be kind or cruel to it. In this show, the audience holds the greatest amount of power over the Uncanny Thing, and without the oversight of council officials, have much more freedom to decide how best to use its powers without any of the red tape present in Come Bargain. Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton For those looking to enact vigilante justice, crafting remedies will punish the Uncanny Thing. Bound to enact what we as an audience wish it to, there is again total freedom for visitors to shape the narrative of the show. Suggestions that it should remove its own teeth or feel the pain it's inflicted on others as retribution were offered up by the audience during our visit. Those instead looking to create positive outcomes from the Uncanny Things bounding can craft uses for the Uncanny Thing to enact with The Lawful (Hester Dart), such as reducing the pain of those in the local hospital or providing shelter to the area's homeless population. All of these remedies and uses come at a price, however. The Uncanny Thing will assign a value to each request based on how much of its finite power it will take to enact. As an audience, we don't know exactly how much power it has to give before destroying itself, so all of our choices remain hypothetical in the first half of the show, with a final decision needed after the show's interval. Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton That central tension of Come Murder - whether to use the Uncanny Thing's power to better the world around us or use it to punish itself - comes to a head in the second half of the show. All of our propositions must be debated and weighed up against one another. The Uncanny Thing will decide the order in which it enacts the remedies and uses, so not everything we demand of it may be possible before it dies. Conflicts of opinion between the audience are a given, with them trying to balance helping the community with punishing the Uncanny Thing for what it's done. There are conflicting ideas from the cast also, with The Vigilante and The Lawful clashing on what the best course of action is, acting like an angel and demon on the shoulder of each audience member. We'd wager most audiences will ultimately want to mine the Uncanny Thing for as much as they can, be it positive or negative, without showing the supernatural being mercy, so the question becomes how much can be achieved before its death. Come Murder An Uncanny Thing (2025) Photo: Claire Shovelton Having now spent roughly 7 hours inside the wyrd world of The Uncanny Things Trilogy, the thing that's really stuck with us is how much freedom each show affords its audience. When we interviewed Virtually Opera's Leo Doulton last month, he referenced Parabolic Theatre's 2019/2022 show Crisis, What Crisis? as a key influence that informed the creation of this work, and that is certainly present throughout each part of the trilogy. It's rare that a creator is willing to hand over total control of a show to the audience, let alone three shows. By offering the audience that freedom, it allows them to forge their own path and take real ownership of what unfolds. It's a testament to the show's cast and crew that each show doesn't spin off into chaos, unless, of course, that's what the audience decides they want to do... ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Uncanny Things Trilogy runs until 30th March 2025 at COLAB Tower near London Bridge. Standard tickets for each show are priced at £45, with tickets for all three shows available as a bundle for £105. For more info and to book tickets, visit designmynight.com Read more reviews of immersive experiences like The Uncanny Things Trilogy here.

The exceptionally well-crafted Phantom Peak delivers another outstanding season of open-world adventures with JonaCon. Photo: Alistair Veryard With JonaCon, Phantom Peak has entered its 12th full season since opening in Summer 2022. An open-world immersive experience that invites visitors to engage with the numerous residents of the town, interact with off-kilter pieces of tech and solve puzzles while completing any or all of each season's 10 new trails. It's pretty much the closest thing you can get to stepping into a real-life video game, and it continues to one-up itself season after season. With probably their strongest set of story trails yet, Phantom Peak has never been better (though we've been saying that with basically every season since it first opened..). While Phantom Peak's Autumn and Winter seasons have always been tied to the real-life events we have 'over the ridge' with Hallowed Peak and Wintermas, Spring and Summer are when the show's creative team can let loose with their own, original overarching themes. Previous seasons have featured the Platypus Parade, which saw the opening of Platyworld, a platypus-themed exhibition (which was actually a front for JonaLabs) and The Festival of Innovation, which had the town's residents presenting bonkers inventions such as The Fear Finder and ProstleBot in a science fair-style competition. JonaCon may be their most out-there theme yet... After tense negotiations and after bidding well over the odds, Phantom Peak has been chosen as the host town for JonaCon, a convention-cum-celebration of JONACO's head honcho, Jonas. There's a lot worth celebrating too - with JONACO recently having mounted a successful mission to space, mended relations with Wintermas demigod Father Platmas, and seemingly thwarted an attempted uprising from anti-JONACO group The Resistance in recent seasons. Huge banners adorn the town's main square, paying homage to the Sun Daddy himself, and groups of tourists have taken to cosplaying as Jonas to really get into the spirit of the convention. Photo: Alistair Veryard By way of summary for those new to Phantom Peak, the town used to be home to a local company, Miramine, which mined for a powerful substance called Diamant below the surface of the town. Following the unexpected death of sausage-fingered Mayor Furbish in a blimp crash, Jonas and JONACO swooped in and ousted Miramine. With them came a series of innovations and changes throughout town that are still present today. While some townsfolk love Jonas and all he's done for the town, others remain sceptical. There's a boatload more backstory we could explain, but this review would be 15,000 words long, and that's all you really need to know if you're a first-time visitor. As previously mentioned, Phantom Peak's new set of story trails are some of the strongest they've ever created. Thanks to the regular changeover of available trails with each new season, Phantom Peak's writing team are able to incorporate and build upon the elements of the previous season guests loved the most. The standout new character from last year's Wintermas season, Sherlock Bones - a dog puppet parodying Sherlock Holmes (though surely you realised that by the name alone..) - makes a welcome return in the trail 'Bad To The Bone', which sees Sherlock battling their nemesis, Meowiarty, on the cliffs of the Reichenbark Falls in dramatic Punch and Judy fashion. Fans of Wicked will find great delight in 'Unpopular', which features a full-length parody of the musical's song that's aimed directly at one of the townsfolk, Perigate, who has long grappled with their position in the town's social hierarchy. Photo: Alistair Veryard Elsewhere in town, Phantom Peak's Videomatic machines, which play pre-recorded video content when a valid 4-digit code is correctly entered, have some exceptionally well-crafted films. We're introduced to the grandfather of long-time fan favourite Dr Winter (who looks suspiciously like Dr Winter, just in a bald cap) in 'Too Fast, Too Furrious', and a tense recreation of a basketball game made with a cast of puppets and a selection of the show's gift shop plush toys as a crowd in 'Winner Takes It All', delivers some of the season's biggest laughs. Phantom Peak also doesn't shy away from lampooning and commenting on the world outside the show throughout its trails, touching on everything from the emotional manipulation of television show contestants in a video package for Phantom Peak's version of Great British Bake Off, to calling out the likes of Mr Beast for their use of young children's attention for monetary gain. Photo: Alistair Veryard Every trail zips along at an enjoyable pace, providing plenty of opportunities to interact with Phantom Peak's various townsfolk, who are the backbone of the experience. With a cast fully committed to improvising and responding to whatever they're being asked by tourists, every interaction with the town's residents is a delight. As with so many immersive experiences, the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it, so don't shy away from interacting with the show's cast whenever you get a chance, even if they're not directly tied into the trail you're working through. With a very generous 4+ hours to explore the town every session, Phantom Peak allows guests to take things at their own pace. There's no danger of missing any big set-piece moments while in the town, as each trail's pace is driven entirely by however fast or slow any given group decides to work through the storylines. There are also plenty of distractions to pull guests away from the main storylines, with a fully functional arcade, a trio of carnival games, a bar with an extensive menu of cocktails and numerous food options courtesy of RoboChef, and add-on experiences including a Cocktail Experience and Puzzle Hunt. Photo: Alistair Veryard Late last year, when the pre-sale for this Spring season of Phantom Peak first opened, it was announced as the final season of Phantom Peak at their current Canada Water home. Since then, they've managed to secure an extension at their massive 30,000 sq. ft venue, with the previously planned final season now on hold for a little while longer. The team behind the show are currently working on locking in a new location for the show elsewhere in East London, seemingly confirming that the world of Phantom Peak has a lot of life left in it yet. Regular readers of Immersive Rumours will know our feelings on Phantom Peak have never wavered. It's the best immersive experience London has to offer and is the crown jewel in the city's immersive scene. An unrivalled experience that continues to deliver season after season, Phantom Peak is deeply rewarding for both first-time visitors and die-hard fans. Praise Jonas! ★★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Photos: Alistair Veryard Phantom Peak's JonaCon season runs until 11th May 2025 in Canada Water. To find out more about the show, and to book tickets, visit phantompeak.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Phantom Peak, check out our recent Reviews.

R Space Production's latest show invites guests to take part in a series of 'pained conundrums' against the clock in this immersive horror prequel. Photo: R Space Productions This review contains mild spoilers for the contents of DEATHCELL: Magenta. DEATHCELL: Magenta, the latest show from R Space Productions, is billed as part immersive theatre, part scare attraction and part escape room. A prequel to 2018's DEATHCELL experience, DEATHCELL: Magenta offers visitors the chance to better understand how the world of DEATHCELL came to be and how the show's titular character became the 'twisted-tinkerer' behind the rogue detention centres' life-or-death challenges. Photo: R Space Productions In the original DEATHCELL, the character of Magenta existed in the shadows. The clues were there as to her existence, but she wasn't part of the show in a tangible way. In DEATHCELL: Magenta, the focus lands squarely at her feet, and she’s present through almost every second of the hour-long experience. The experience begins on a nondescript street on Fish Island, just south of Hackney Wick. Guests are first greeted by a pair of roaming actors in neon pink and yellow trucker hats named Greg and Pee-Wee. Both are huge movie buffs and engage visitors with zippy back-and-forths about their favourite films. They're eagerly awaiting a preview screening of a new horror movie, Magenta, which is playing at Rewind Rentals - a Blockbuster-esque video rental store that's somehow still operating despite the dominance of streaming services. Photo: R Space Productions After being ushered into Rewind Rentals, guests settle in to watch the Magenta short film, which is being projected onto the back wall of the room. It's got a distinct 80's B-movie vibe, with buckets of fake blood, gruesome deaths and a particularly uncomfortable scene involving barbed wire that felt like something out of SAW. Fans of the original DEATHCELL will enjoy the numerous references made to the 2018 show, but being familiar with that show certainly isn't a requirement to enjoy the experience. While the short film provides some much-needed world-building and adequately sets the scene for what's to come, the run time is far too long. Clocking in around 25 minutes, it takes up nearly half of the experience's overall duration and will likely leave guests eager to get through it so they can try out Magenta's 'pained conundrums' for themselves. After a clever reveal of the door through to the next room, guests are dropped into the world of the film, and the escape room portion of the experience begins. Photo: R Space Productions With Magenta (Steph Ricketts) looking into each room through a sheet of plexiglass, guests are tasked with solving her series of escalating puzzles against the clock. Accompanying guests in each of these rooms are a pair of 'Flys' - masked henchmen there at the behest of the Warden who oversees DEATHCELL, and has recruited the reluctant Magenta to do his bidding. Regular escape room visitors may make light work of the numerous puzzles that fill up the back half of the show, but for those with less experience, it may prove to be a frustrating time. With the Flys and Magenta watching on as guests frantically search through cupboards, shelves and drawers for items, try to decode numerical sequences and work out the combinations to various padlocks, their presence is both a blessing and a curse. If you're really struggling, the Flys will offer up wordless clues to point you in the right direction, but Magenta is more direct with their words and will call you out if you're doing a particularly bad job (At this point, you can probably work out how well we did solving these puzzles...). Any small victories you get are amplified knowing you've got an audience watching on, but it also makes the failures sting even more. In each group, one unlucky participant will find themselves separated from the rest of their team for a portion of the show, being locked away inside a small, dark space for several minutes to try and find a solution to one of the puzzles. Their escape is entirely dependent on strong teamwork, so communication is key if they want to see the light of day again. Photo: R Space Productions The strongest moments of DEATHCELL: Magenta's puzzle-solving sections come in the final act. Guests are told to put on boiler suits and crawl on their hands and knees through an extended pitch-black crawl space. Most of the show's scares are contained in this section, with multiple dark corners playing home to masked creatures that are more than happy to invade your personal space and drag you backwards by the ankles, leaving you scrambling for an escape. Luckily for them, the exit to this crawl space is locked and requires groups to potentially backtrack to find the solution. With little more than a glowstick to light the way, turning every corner is a daunting prospect that's not for the faint of heart. DEATHCELL: Magenta's final room also offers up an intense time-pressured test by way of a chained-up Fly holding the keys to freedom. With them wildly swinging an axe at anyone who gets close, it's a challenge to retrieve the necessary items from their person successfully, and it effectively ramps up the tension before you're able to make your final escape. The conclusion of the show sees Magenta emerge from behind the plexiglass for a face-to-face confrontation with DEATHCELL's Warden. One final reveal ties the ending of this show directly into 2018's show, and guests are free to leave, having played their part in securing the fate of countless future DEATHCELL prisoners. Photo: R Space Productions If you're looking for some out-of-season scares and a challenging escape room experience, DEATHCELL: Magenta goes a long way to scratching those itches. While it wasn't the scariest immersive experience we've ever attended, and the puzzles may rely on padlocks and numbers a bit too much, the show's combination of various theatrical elements creates an experience that's trying to innovate in a very crowded market. We'll be eagerly awaiting news on the next instalment in the DEATHCELL series, and in the meantime, will try and get a little better at puzzle solving... ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] DEATHCELL: Magenta runs from 21st February to 1st March 2025 in Hackney Wick. Tickets are priced from £30.00 for General Admission. For more info and to book, visit deathcell.co.uk

With an exceptional performance from Kate Webster, The Shop for Mortals and All Fools is a profoundly affecting piece from Director Vinicius Salles Photo: James Lawson This review is from the February 2025 run at Stanley Arts The Shop For Mortals and All Fools is the latest show from director Vinicius Salles. An immersive, site-specific retelling of The Bacchae by Euripides, the show is told from the perspective of Agave - the mother of Pentheus and aunt of Dionysus - as the god of wine and ecstasy returns to Thebes to claim his divine right. The Bacchae is having quite the moment within London's immersive scene right now, with Sleepwalk Immersive's retelling of the story coming to Hoxton Hall in March. While both shows are based on the same text, their approaches to adapting it differ in some key ways. Set within an antique shop in an unnamed English village, shopkeeper Agatha (Agave, played by Kate Webster) has invited a small audience of 10 people to preview the shop's latest collection. While not every item may be for sale, they all have their own story to tell, and nearly all of them lead back to their nephew Dominic's (Dionysus) return to the village. Photo: James Lawson By way of introduction, visitors are invited to explore this collection and remove the sticker alongside an item of their choosing if they think it may contain a hidden coin gifted by the Gods. With information on each item provided in a catalogue, visitors are free to browse the collection and make their own decisions. While it's an engaging beginning to the show, the combination of low light within the space and small font size makes it a challenge to make an informed decision, with most visitors settling on any available sticker they come across after a few moments. The consequences of these decisions aren't immediately clear, but become important later on for one audience member. Photo: James Lawson Slowly unfolding over the next 45 minutes, Agatha recounts the tale of growing up in the brothel overlooking the village where she and The Vixens would worship Cybele, the goddess of fertility. She speaks of her sister falling pregnant and giving birth to a child that the villagers believed to be half human, half God, and her marriage to the man who would become Pastor. As the years passed, she would indulge more and more in drinking to speed up the passage of time, until one day a newspaper headline stating 'Banished God Returns' changed the trajectory of her life. Those familiar with The Bacchae will know the next part of this story. With Dominic's return heralding the village's descent into frenzy, Agatha is drawn into the woods and joins the crowds of women deep in ritualistic worship of the newly returned God. It's a choice that later leads to the death of Preston (Pentheus) at the hands of his mother, who decapitates him while believing him to be a lion. Photo: James Lawson Within the show's space, Kate Webster has a commanding presence. Given the experience both Salles and Webster have as choreographers, it's little surprise that Agatha's movement throughout the space is utterly enthralling. Constantly shifting and contorting as she traverses the room, Webster injects every scene with a wonderfully fluid sense of self. Alongside this, her performance of the show's text is exceptional, ranking up there with some of the best we've ever seen in an immersive, site-specific show. While all of Agatha's interactions with the audience are fairly light, there are select moments where she interacts directly with them. Some of the sustained eye contact between Agatha and audience members has a terrifying menace to it, and smaller interactions inviting the audience to scatter bark across the space's central table create a wonderful visual to go alongside her descent deeper into the woods outside the village. Midway through the show, the whisper of a prophecy is shared with one audience member. Photo: James Lawson By the conclusion of The Shop for Mortals and All Fools, Agatha's feelings are clear. She's been shaken by her retelling of past events, and she holds the village's men responsible. Drinking numbs the pain and represses her memories, but the objects she holds onto still have great meaning. For one audience member, their earlier choice of which artefact to claim as their own will reveal an even deeper meaning, but for the rest of us, our time in the shop is over. The Shop For Mortals and Fools is an exceptionally well-crafted piece of immersive, site-specific theatre. Tickets for the current run at Stanley Arts are sold out, but here's hoping the shop's opening hours are soon extended so more people can hear Agatha's story first-hand. ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Shop for Mortals and All Fools runs at COLAB Tower until 7th June 2026. Tickets are priced from £35.00. To find out more about the show and to book tickets, visit tickettailor.com

Hush Collective's ethereal performances offer up an alternative way to engage with live music for a blindfolded audience in the dark. Photo: Ian Olsson Seeing live music in London is an experience often made up of small annoyances. Your sightline of the stage will be interrupted by phones being raised into the air. People will constantly squeeze past you, trying to find their friends or get to the bar. The music may be drowned out by people talking nearby. It's a dice roll every time you go to a gig, and the behaviour of the audience around you can have a big impact, ultimately distracting you from what's on stage and pulling you out of the experience. We accept all of this to connect with music in a live environment. There is, however, an alternative where none of that is an issue... In The Dark by Hush Collective is a tightly controlled 'immersive' experience that's been designed to ensure there are no barriers or distractions between the audience and what's most important - the music. Performed in dimly-lit venues, with the audience wearing sleep masks throughout, anything that could pull you out of the experience has been removed, and everything else - from what you're going to hear to who exactly is performing - remains a secret until the performance. Photo: Ian Olsson During our visit, a collection of 11 tracks was performed by the 26-person-strong Hush Collective, who roam the venue barefoot during the performance at St. Bartholomew the Great near Farringdon. Bookended by Sigur Rós' Festival, every song performed had an ethereal, other-worldly feeling. Lesser-known songs from the likes of Colplay and Mumford and Sons sit alongside hauntingly beautiful renditions of songs by Mree, Garth Stevenson and Ane Brun to create the kind of soundscape fitting for within the walls of the 900-year-old building. Over the course of the 60-minute performance, it gently moves you into a zen-like meditative state, with no external stimuli besides the music to hold your attention. With no central stage for the members of Hush Collective to be situated on, the performance takes place with the musicians and vocalists spread around the venue, creating an analogue 360° listening experience. Depending on where in the room you're sitting, you'll likely pick up on different details, with some voices and instruments standing out from the rest as they all echo through the space. The sound of certain instrumentals will become louder as the performers approach you, then recede into the background as they pass by. Everyone's experience of the performance will differ, purely based on where they're seated. Photo: Ian Olsson Being blindfolded for the duration allows your other senses to become heightened. Those seated on the aisles likely picked up on the movement of air as the performers walked up and down, the rustling of coats and squeak of chairs were more pronounced, and the familiar smell of the building became more noticeable as the evening progressed. We're capable of picking up on all of these things in our day-to-day lives, but how often are we allowed to sit and notice them without distraction? It's an eerily beautiful and emotional experience for those who attend. In The Dark is unlike any performance we've ever attended, and if it encourages people to focus on the music when at gigs in the future without distracting those around them, it'll have changed live music for the better. We'll certainly be keeping our phones in our pockets going forward... Photos: Ian Olsson ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] In The Dark is playing at St Bartholomew the Great near Farringdon and Trinity Buoy Wharf near Canning Town on various dates across March 2025. Tickets are priced from £35. To find out more visit in-the-dark.com

Yippee Theatre's hilarious immersive drag panto 'Dead Hard' sees Nakablowmi Tower taken over by Hands Grubber and his team of butch henchmen. Photo: Yippee Theatre Dead Hard, the debut production from Yippee Theatre, mixes adult panto, drag, parody, and immersive theatre. Written by Lowell Belfield and Helena Raeburn, alongside the show's director, Bertie Watkins, the show is chock full of double-ended dildos, double entendre, and is easily one of the funniest shows we've seen in years. Photo: Yippee Theatre The opening 20 minutes of Dead Hard see the audience split in half, with them either ushered to the 32nd floor of Nakablowmi Towers to take part in a series of X-rated party games or being enlisted to help with Hands Grubber's imminent storming of the building on the ground floor. During our visit, we were escorted up to the 32nd floor and welcomed by Joe Capitalism (Jacqui Bardelang), whose invitation to "watch them do a massive line of blow" immediately sets the tone for the office party gone wrong. With kilos of cocaine both laid out on a boardroom table and filling up a paddling pool, as well as dildos suction-cupped onto the glass partition dividing the space. It's an audacious opening to a show, which is made all the more outrageous by a party game in which an audience member needs to keep a huge dildo balanced upright in their hand for as long as possible, and a game involving champagne bottles and string that required some very precise hip movements to win. If it wasn't already clear, Dead Hard has a wonderfully chaotic energy to it. The campness is turned up to 11 right from the start, and every moment that references John McTiernan's original film has been injected with a huge amount of innuendo and humour. Photo: Yippee Theatre For those on the building's top floor, there are fleeting visits from gym-bro John McClean (Alex Dowding), fresh off a flight from New York City, and their disgruntled ex-wife Holly (Calum Robshaw) in the opening act, which sees Holly burst in as John is being stripped down to his vest and without socks and shoes, soundtracked by Magic Mike staple 'Pony' by Ginuwine. We can't speak to what those recruited by Grubber many floors below have been up to, but our paths soon intercept in suitably dramatic fashion. CEO Joe's plans for everyone to gather around for a company photo are interrupted as the doors to the party burst open and the show's villain, Hands Grubber (Toby Osmond), decked out in a sequin outfit and high heels, enters flanked by the other half of the audience, who usher everyone into the show's main performance space. "You will witness the greatest corporate spanking in history" decrees Grubber as we take our seats. Once inside this main performance space, Dead Hard becomes a more traditional panto, with the audience sat on either side of the central stage for the remainder of the show. The scenes that follow include everything you'd expect from a Christmas pantomime - from screams of 'He's behind you!' to regular booing from the audience and a heap of costume changes. The show's mature tone allows the cast to fully lean into the adult nature of the show's script. Guns have been replaced with dildos that vibrate instead of fire; a sex doll substitutes for the film's many dead terrorists, and Hands' name is mined for every joke you could probably ever think up about handjobs. There are numerous references to RuPaul's Drag Race, Grindr, and even the recent assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO is incorporated into the show's script, which is both a non-stop barrage of jokes and a celebration of queer culture. Photo: Yippee Theatre By design, pantos are interactive, and the audience plays an important role in the proceedings. You can expect regular questions asked to the crowd, and every emotional moment is played for a reaction - whether it be a sympathetic aww, a boo or a cheer. Toby Osmond's Hands, in particular, will play up to the crowd at every given opportunity, lapping up their booing with delight while goading them to continue. While some of Die Hard's most iconic moments, including John crawling through the vents of Nakatomi Plaza, are recreated throughout the show with ingenious creativity, and scenes later on in which the cast chase each other on go-karts take the absurdity of the show to ever greater heights, there's real heart at the centre of Dead Hard. The personal journey that John McClean goes on throughout the show, in which they grapple with their own sexuality, adds emotional weight to the show's climax and recontextualises the original film's bromance between McClane and Powell to be an out-and-out love story. Without a doubt, Dead Hard is one of the funniest shows we've seen in years. You'd struggle to find a more entertaining night out in London this Christmas season, even if it's light on proper immersive elements outside of the first act. It's a Yippee-Ki-Yaas from us. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Dead Hard: A Drag Die Hard Parody Panto runs at COLAB Tower from 10th December 2024 to 12th January 2025. Tickets are priced from £32 and can be booked via colabtheatre.co.uk

We venture into Room 101 as part of the Ministry of Truth's recruitment process in 1984 - A Unique Theatre Experience. Photo: Maggie Jupe Pure Expression's adaptation of 1984 returns to Hackney Town Hall for a second year, featuring a fresh cast, creative team, and new direction by Jack Reardon (From Out The Land, Pucked). When the revamped production was announced in September, writer and executive producer Adam Taub promised it would be “more visceral and more challenging” for audiences. While this iteration certainly delivers a more visceral experience and makes some positive strides over last year’s version, it remains hindered by an underdeveloped and truncated script that strips away much of what makes George Orwell's novel so impactful. Photo: Maggie Jupe The show begins with an extended pre-show in Hackney Town Hall's Atrium. After being handed an ID badge, we're invited to grab a drink or take a seat and await 'processing'. Ensemble members, dressed in pastel-grey Ministry uniforms adorned with Ingsoc badges, menacingly roam the space with clipboards. Greeting everyone as 'Comrade', they quiz attendees on their opinions about Big Brother and gauge interest in joining the anti-sex league. Soundtracked by eerie hums and drones, the familiar slogan of 'See it, say it, sorted' occasionally echoes through the space, highlighting how modern-day Britain shares more similarities with Orwell's Oceania than we'd like. Following a short musical performance on stage by two party loyalists, the audience, all prospective candidates for roles within the governmental organisation, are instructed to proceed upstairs into the Council Chamber to be assessed. It's here that we're introduced to O'Brien (Dominic Carter), who gives a lengthy speech underlining the importance of the Ministry's work. We're asked to stand for the National Anthem before O'Brien singles out some of the audience by badge number. Quizzed on our observational skills, and with a rapidly dwindling number of participants who had demonstrated the necessary surveillance skills, we're soon escorted back to the venue's atrium for the remainder of the show, which now doubles as the Ministry's observation centre. Photo: Maggie Jupe Adam Taub's adaptation of Orwell's original novel has done away with a lot of the smaller moments and character building and instead focuses on a few key moments which are performed on the central stage within the Atrium. Presented as a telescreen, we briefly get to see Winston (Joe Anderson) and Julia (Neekita Knight) first meeting and falling for each other, before immediately jumping forward in time six months to see them secretly cohabiting. We've barely had a chance to understand exactly why these two were drawn together in the first place, or exactly why their decision to secretly build a life together may have dire consequences, before their flat is stormed by Thought Police, and the pair are separated. While it hits many of the main beats in the original novel, so much of what made it resonate with readers has been lost. Photo: Maggie Jupe The remainder of the show sees Winston being tortured and interrogated inside Room 101. These scenes are the biggest departure from last year's adaptation and thankfully, are where the creative team's efforts with the lighting, sound and video design get to shine. Taking direction from video designer Dan Light, the show's ensemble operates numerous cameras around the stage, capturing both the repeated scenes of Winston having his head dunked into a bath and being electrocuted, and the audience who watch on silently. Writ large when projected three floors high onto the back wall of the venue, it's as if we're watching a snuff film being made right in front of us. Some clever video trickery at a pivotal moment during Winston's torture also has us questioning if what's being shown via projection can be trusted, as it fails to line up with what we can see happening on stage in front of us. When combined with Ben Jacob's excellent lighting design and Munotida Chinyanga's haunting sound design, these final scenes in 1984 are an arresting and intense experience, even if we've arrived at them so quickly, they lack the emotional depth you'd have hoped for. Photo: Maggie Jupe With so much of the novel's story having been erased from this adaptation, what's then left for audiences to sink their teeth into? Well, in terms of audience interactions, all of the moments in which the audience is called upon for input can be boiled down to one question: Are you loyal to the party? Those who commit to the idea that they're there to help push forward the Ministry's cause will get the richest moments of immersion, not least the single audience member selected to participate in the show's final moments. For the rest of us, who have shown ourselves to be less committed to Big Brother, we're left to watch an adaptation of Orwell's that's visually engaging, but over far too quickly. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Immersive 1984: A Unique Theatre Experience runs from 1 October 2024 to 22 December 2024 at Hackney Town Hall. Tickets are priced from £24.50. To find out more and buy tickets, visit immersive1984.com