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

increasingly desperate letters to anyone he can think of, begging for a sign and begging for the gods to speak These dances, at their peak, are very effective, if occasionally a little under-rehearsed-looking.

. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Smithsonian Starstruck: An Immersive Experience

. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Vikings: The Immersive Experience runs at Dock

Counterpilot's brilliant interactive social experiment will have you questioning whether there's still space for objectivity in a post-truth era. Photo: Kate O'Sullivan Truthmachine, created by Australian collective Counterpilot, is an interactive social experiment in which an audience member is invited to take part in a lie detector test while a group of their peers look on and examine their physiological response to probing, and at times intrusive, questioning Initially inspired by the first Trump presidency and the rise of fake news, Truthmachine looks to examine what we're willing to accept as fact and if such a thing can even exist in today's post-truth world. The experience begins with guests being seated in the round in front of a microphone and an illuminated console which registers yes/no answers and drenches each audience member in a green or red light once their answer to each question posed is revealed. An initial round of control questions delivered through headphones - covering everything from nut allergies and capitalism to masturbatory habits - proves to be an effective way of raising the collective tension, as each box briefly lights up before settling on who must answer into the microphone. The whole thing has a game show-like quality to it, albeit one where the only 'prize' is the chance to answer far more piercing questions while strapped into a polygraph. Photo: Danica Zuks With an audience member selected for the hot seat, the experiment's host (Emily Carr) dives right into a series of far more intimate questions as the other eleven audience members watch on, looking for even the slightest changes in body language, heart rate, breathing or skin conductivity. It's here, when the group becomes a jury and is asked to weigh up the answers of their fellow audience member against the supposedly objective data being gathered through the wires and sensors attached to them, that Truthmachine's central question becomes clearer. Will we trust our gut and intuition, or what the lie detector machine is telling us? Interspersed amongst the questioning is a highly-produced pre-recorded narrative that explores the history of the lie detector machine, and the campaign waged against the polygraph by Douglas Williams, who spent decades teaching people how to beat the exact kind of test audiences are undertaking in that very moment. The juxtaposition between Williams' critique of the technology and the audience's sudden reliance on it to ascertain if we're being fed truth or lies from across the table is particularly striking. The experience's final moments are the most theatrical, and recast the audience member plugged into the polygraph as the only person in the room holding all the cards. The rest of the room is confronted with the realisation that they may well have been lied to the entire time, even if what they were told was the truth. The question is no longer whether the machine can be trusted, but why we were willing to trust it in the first place. ★★★★½ Truthmachine runs at C alto (Venue 40) up to eight times a day between 15:00 and 21:50 until 30th August 2026. For more information and to book tickets, visit edfringe.com See all of our Edinburgh Fringe coverage here.

. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Colosseum: The Legendary Arena runs at Eclipso

. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Legend of the Titanic: The Immersive Exhibition Tickets are priced from £27.00 and can be booked via feverup.com For more reviews of immersive exhibitions and experiences like The Legend of the Titanic, check out our recent Reviews

We'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. and has fundamentally changed how we see ourselves. ★★★★★ [Ticket gifted in exchange for an honest review 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

. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Jurassic World: The Experience runs at NEON For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Jurassic World: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews.

. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Squid Game: The Experience runs at Immerse LDN For more reviews of immersive experiences like Squid Game: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews

If you have kids who love Minecraft, you probably don't need this review to tell you if they'll enjoy Photos: Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Minecraft 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.

Our review of Bridge Command... Photos: Alex Brenner ★★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Bridge Command is currently For more information about the show, and to book tickets visit bridgecommand.space For more reviews of shows like Bridge Command, check out other recent immersive reviews here.