. ★★★½ Total score: 83717 [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Enigma Quest's Escape Arcade

standing, denies any nefarious goings-on, but in the next breath, a prophecy echoes throughout the prison, speaking standard, it's hard not to fall under Hexmoor's spell. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review Tickets are priced from £53.95 per person and can be booked via hexmoor.co.uk For more reviews of immersive experiences like Hexmoor: Wizarding Prison, check out our recent Reviews.

Impact-Site-Verification: dddb397e-ea41-4669-b568-2b1801cc5a64 Photo: Alexander Nicolaou 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 and 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 arriving 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 presented with a smile almost as false as his sincerity. 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.

With a return to Thebes and a final season at Phantom Peak's Canada Water venue, to an immersive version Peak: The Final Season Photo: Alistair Veryard With 11 seasons of Phantom Peak having run since first opening in August 2022, it's been confirmed that the next season of Phantom Peak - currently titled Over the last 24 months, Phantom Peak has gone from strength to strength, with consistently high-quality Recent seasons of Phantom Peak have had increasing mentions of 'The Great Undoing' - an event that looks

. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Dante or Die's I Do runs at London Malmaison

earth and water stories arrive at regular intervals, accompanied by gusts of wind and the occasional leak Cosima and Ali speak to them one-on-one, prompt them to answer a ringing rotary phone (which is unknowingly While it's no doubt a cautionary tale, speaking to the danger of untruthfulness and how lies can quickly all of us into a flame, if we continue to tend to it. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review

. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Reviewed at The Glitch in London at a WIP performance

We recap our picks of the five best immersive shows of 2024 as part of our Year In Review series. #1 was the stand-out show of 2024 and has redefined what small-scale immersive theatre can achieve. #2 - Phantom Peak (The League of Adventure) Photo: Alistair Veryard Phantom Peak's ongoing narrative reached new

. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Save 10% on tickets to Race Across The World 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.

. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Nutcracker Noir runs at Protein Studios

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.

. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] COMA Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic COMA, which first figment of your imagination, as you lie immobilised. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review The mind's a crazy thing... ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] ARCADE Photo: Mihaela We reviewed ARCADE earlier in the year during their Shoreditch Town Hall takeover. Read an extract below, with our full review linked underneath.