Image: Eclipso Colosseum: The Legendary Arena is the latest immersive VR production from French producers Eclipso and Small Creative . Running alongside the hugely successful  Titanic: Echos from the Past  at Eclipso's permanent Camden High Street venue, the 40-minute-long experience allows guests to explore virtual recreations of Ancient Rome and the infamous Colosseum alongside Caius, a teenager who idolises the arena's fighters, and Flamma, a Syrian-born gladiator who was one of the era's most famous warriors. Upon checking in at Eclipso and being called up in small groups, there's a brief explainer on how the VR headsets work and the usual health and safety warnings you'd expect from a free-roaming VR experience (don't run, don't walk into walls, don't try and sit down on a virtual chair as it doesn't exist, and you'll make a fool of yourself, etc.). Once you've settled into wearing the headset and waved goodbye to the real world, all that stands between you and Ancient Rome is a short virtual corridor. Opening virtual scenes have guests following Caius, a teenage ball of energy who dreams of one day becoming a fighter in the Colosseum. While he'd love nothing more than to enthusiastically wave his wooden sword around his family home and show off his skills all afternoon, he's soon told to head down to the local market by his mother, ushering him (and us) out the door and onto the streets of Rome after showing us the city's terracotta-washed skyline from their balcony. Within the market, there's the opportunity to eavesdrop on conversations between traders and local residents, pick up certain items from the stalls (which you can quickly discard and throw to the floor like a stroppy toddler), and soak in the atmosphere. Shortly after, standing in front of the Colosseum, Caius explains the story behind the Colossus of Nero, a 30-metre-tall bronze statue that sat outside the arena. While it towers over you on the ground, the rising platforms guests are on allow them to take in the finer details as they float higher and higher into the air above the city. Image: Eclipso Once inside the Colosseum, Caius explains the seating hierarchy, with politicians and wealthy Romans seated on the lower levels closer to the action, and the common folk restricted to the upper levels. It's in this scene that the scale of what's been produced for Colosseum becomes clear. With a crowd of 80,000 spectators, it's an awe-inspiring view from the upper levels, with people as far as the eye can see, and it offers the kind of spectacle only possible with VR. As great a view as it is, Caius isn't content with being relegated to such a distant view of his idol and ushers guests down a secret passage, saying he knows a shortcut to a better view. Emerging inside a hypogeum beneath the arena, which is home to imprisoned fighters, guests are soon introduced to Flamma, who's preparing for his upcoming fight. Once on the arena floor alongside Flamma, with crowds cheering him on, it's clear why he turned down freedom four times over his lifetime – the man was built for fighting and was committed to providing a good show for them, regardless of the cost. From here, there are several hugely impressive scenes on the arena floor depicting Flamma fighting opponents, from small one-on-one skirmishes to venationes (in which the fighters are pitted against everything from elephants to leopards) and full-blown naval battle recreations in a flooded arena aboard opposing ships. While guests never have to defend themselves and engage in these battles, for certain scenes, they'll find themselves equipped with swords and shields, inviting them to engage in mock combat with other attendees by waving their hands. Despite the countless litres of blood spilt within the real-life Colosseum, Eclipso's VR experience is family-friendly and wisely doesn't show any of the gory details crowds at the time were hungry for. Vanquished fighters evaporate in a cloud of gold dust as they fall to the floor, and while some of the fighting is highly choreographed, for better or worse, there's nothing within them that would invite you to really contemplate the giant loss of life that took place where you're standing. Rounding off the experience, with the fighting behind us in the training camp, Caius emerges and finally is able to meet his idol, Flamma, face-to-face. While Caius is keen to share that he wants to grow up and be just like Flamma, the Syrian gladiator gives him pause, explaining that being there for those who love him and not risking his life for the bloodthirsty crowd is just as noble a pursuit. Image: Eclipso While there is plenty of really interesting and engaging educational content on display throughout Colosseum, the free-roam setup within each scene does allow guests to step back from that and treat it as a virtual playground if they so wish. At one point, temptation got the better of us, and our inner arsonist came out when a flaming torch spawned into our hand, leading us to (unsuccessfully) try and light our virtual companions on fire, and we did spend a couple of minutes trying to build up the courage to walk off the edge of numerous high platforms without feeling like we were going to fall to our death. With impressive technology, a huge scale, and some really engaging content, Colosseum: The Legendary Arena is up there with some of the best VR we've ever experienced. Striking a balance between entertainment and education, it's a wonderful experience for families, those interested in Ancient Rome, and those keen to try out VR for the first time and discover what all the fuss is about. ★★★★ Colosseum: The Legendary Arena runs at Eclipso on Camden High Street daily. Tickets are priced from £23.00 per person and can be booked via feverup.com

Tickets are priced from £27.00 and can be booked via feverup.com For more reviews of immersive exhibitions and experiences like The Legend of the Titanic, check out our recent Reviews

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 are 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 was 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 ★★★★ 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

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We're not going to give away any of the key moments from Undersigned in this review. During the onboarding, it's agreed that the attendee must speak honestly. underbellyedinburgh.co.uk You can join the publist waitlist for future appointments via yannickto.com/undersigned For more reviews of experiences like Yannick Trapman-O'Brien's Undersigned, check out our recent Reviews

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Saint Jude is the latest immersive experience from Swamp Motel - a company that seems to constantly be pushing themselves to create truly original and engaging pieces of immersive theatre, both in the real world or online. Through the COVID-19 lockdowns, they developed Isklander - a trilogy of excellent Zoom based escape experiences that had audiences hacking into social media and email accounts in search of a missing woman against the clock. Once on the other side of the UK's numerous lockdowns and restrictions, they opened The Drop, an escape experience that had audiences enter the criminal underworld trying to locate a long-lost book inside an unassuming office block in Aldgate. It was a show that constantly pulled the rug out from under its audience, leaving those playing to never truly know where the escape-room experience ended and the real world began. With expectations high, they return now with Saint Jude - a show created in collaboration with CharismaAI, that is vastly different to their previous shows. While it may not stick the landing in the same way some of their other work has, it's a unique and engaging hour of entertainment. The premise of the show finds audience members arrive at Saint Jude, a private company that describes itself as a 'world first organisation that allows you to communicate with people trapped in lifelong, irreversible comas'. We're there for our trial shift as Guidestars - those who are paired to the mind of a random comatose patient, somewhere in the UK, and we're trying to form a strong enough connection to help them wake up. It's no surprise that the story we enter into has more to it than first meets the eye. During our briefing from Stefan, the Saint Jude staff member tasked with explaining the technology and advising us on how to best connect to our patients, he presents with a smile almost as false as his sincerity. Photo: Alexander Nicolaou Once settled into our desks, with headphones on and a million instructions flying through our heads, we begin to talk to our patient. Powered entirely by AI - with a slightly robotic sounding voice, we start to learn more about our patients past and are slowly asked to reveal more about ourselves all in the name of forming a connection - classic small talk topics such as our star sign, or our favourite movie. The technology on display is genuinely impressive, if at times a little restrictive. If you can suspend your disbelief it does feel like a proper conversation, albeit with someone who will occasionally ignore the personal details you've just shared to continue talking about themselves. It's not that surprising given you're always working towards a series of story beats, which your AI companion will keep hitting regardless of what you say. The journey, however, is thrilling and slowly escalates over an hour. Towards the climax, the story breaks free from your headphones and requires real-world action from yourself - an interaction with others that we navigated successfully thanks to some social engineering. Ultimately it's a small moment that feels a lot larger due to the pressure put on you by the AI voice in your ears egging you on. Swamp Motel has again delivered an experience that's totally different to anything else out there, and their ability to constantly reinvent or subvert the expectations of what an immersive experience can be is incredibly exciting, even if this show fell a little flat compared to their previous work. ★★★ ½ Saint Jude is located at 100 Petty France, London. Tickets are available through saintjude.ai , prices start at £20 per person.

For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Race Across The World: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews .

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Our review of Viola's Room... received a complimentary ticket to this show and as such, are disclosing this information before  our review

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