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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 adaption 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 echos 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, is 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 hope 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 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

Ahead of Pure Expression's site-specific staging of 1984 returning to Hackney Town Hall next month, Immersive Rumours sat down with director Jack Reardon to discuss his plans for the show and how this iteration of the show drastically differs from the 2023 version. Immersive Rumours: Hi Jack. Thanks for speaking with us today. Do you mind telling us a bit about your history of directing and how that led you to becoming involved in 1984: A Unique Theatre Experience? Jack Reardon : So I'm originally from a very small town in Ireland called Clonmel in Tipperary. I trained and did a Master's at The Lir Academy, and then spent the next eight years there in Dublin. I was really fortunate with the companies I got to work with and had an amazing experience immediately working at scale. One of my first jobs was on Let the Right One In, which John Tiffany originally directed. It was the West End production that came over to Dublin, which immediately showed me what theatre was capable of doing. I feel very fortunate for that because I think particularly young artists come into the industry, and they have to go through the fringe scene. Great credit to it, but I was very lucky to get to work in those big houses and see what working at scale looked like. I tried to bring that experience into my own work, and while I still did fringe theatre in tandem with it, I found a cohort of people in Ireland with whom I got to create work at scale over a couple of different summers at home in Tipperary . What started out as all of us having maybe € 3,000 to pay a bit to people, with Mam cooking for us for a few weeks in the summer led to us getting one of the biggest awards in Ireland, which is called the Open Call award. That resulted in a cast of 100 people where we were outside doing site-specific, huge spectacle theatre. That then brought me to London about 2 and a half years ago. I've been very lucky and fortunate here with the people I've gotten to meet and the advice I've been given. I think London is incredible at saying 'Come in, have a cup of tea, have a chat, and we'll point you in the right direction' which brought me to 1984. It was the Young Vic who suggested me to Maddie [Wilson, Producer] and Adam [Taub, Executive Producer] to touch base with because of a conversation I had with them where I talked about my experience. I think that's what's amazing about this city, people are afraid of it, and rightfully so sometimes, but when London's good to you, it's very good. IR: You’ve had experience devising immersive/site specific work before with Overlook - a show that was set to explore military life inside a former army barracks. Can you tell us a bit about the experience of working on that show and how ultimately the COVID-19 pandemic cut it short? JR: Overlook still breaks my heart today... we were due to create this immersive show with the Irish Defence Forces. We were a week away from going to the barracks in Kilkenny to train with the Defence Forces for a few days, then we got an email that said 'Hi everybody. We're a little bit nervous about this virus thing, so we're going to delay by a week.' Fast forward a couple of months; the world's locked down and the show was pulled. So much of the pre-production that went into that was incredible for both the work I'm doing in 1984 and indeed a lot of other shows I've done. The term site-specific is great, but I became more interested in the idea of site-responsive. How do you go into a space and allow it to be comparative to production, rather than just going in and slapping any old show up and onto it? You have to let that space tell its own story. So I think for 1984, when audiences step into that world, just the architecture alone of Hackney Town Hall, you walk in those doors and everyone goes, 'Oh, OK, yeah' and you feel it. That's design that you couldn't buy; you couldn't design it. The aura of that space is tangible. When I did Overlook, that in part became From Out the Land  with a lot of the research that we did over the next few years, which was also in the barracks but now outside, end-on theatre. The biggest thing was, how does the ground literally speak to the production, and how does it feed into it? How does it make an audience exist much more lively and freely in that world? IR: Hackney Town Hall would be an impressive venue for any show, but for something like 1984 it feels like a perfect fit for the Ministry of Truth with its striking architecture and period feel. How much of the decision making of what's going on in the show is in response to the venue, and how much is trying to get the venue to fit around the show? JR: There's always a bit of a give-and-take. I think where Hackney Town Hall gives, it gives limitlessly. The upstairs council chamber room, for example, every time we brought creatives into it, everyone has just gone, 'Well, we're just leaving this alone. You don't need to do anything to it'. Its regalness, authority, and purpose are so tangible. Ruth [Badila], our incredible designer, said 'We would spend a fortune and come nowhere close to designing this.' It's a gift to a designer and to a production. On the flip side of that, when you're downstairs in the atrium, our production still has to tell a story. How do we make this space into an observation centre that can be inside, outside, in a secret bedroom? How can it also be a torture room? How can it be Room 101? Hackney Town Hall atrium is a beautiful space. Thankfully, it's not a torture chamber. So how do you use it when it gives, and then how do you be creative with making that work? Thankfully, the incredible design team that are on board with this show, I'm so fortunate that we got them all to join us. The ideas that we have, the innovation - I don't think I've seen it personally in an immersive setting before. There are a whole lot of tricks and twists from a design perspective to make that building into what we need it to be. It's a show that's definitely for all the senses; it's going to spark some interesting responses. IR: This iteration of 1984 Immersive has been reworked from the 2023 version of the show. Can you tell us a bit about how it’s different and how those changes came about?  JR: Full respect to the previous iterations of Adam's script, but I think there was almost too much respect given to what a perceived production of 1984 might be and might look like. Maybe it was too faithful to the novel. When I came on board, the thing that I was most interested in was, Why now? Why do 1984 today? I think my production of 1984 is a production for today's audience. It speaks to us now as much as it does honour Orwell's 1940s novel. I think the biggest change among many other things is that it's a completely different production. It's not blue boiler suits. It's not strictly coming in and just watching a couple of scenes play out. It's much more intricate in bringing design into it and bringing audiences on this journey where I think, frighteningly, we can see ourselves in it, or at least we can see our countries and governments in it. I think people will be able to find a lot of touchstones to this production that feel much more now than it did previously. We could have just done what happened last year, but I think credit goes to Adam and Maddie, who wanted to evolve because they know what it can be. It will feel very different from previous iterations, but hopefully in a much more exciting way. It's a show that's definitely for all the senses; it's going to spark some interesting responses. At all times in our production, even when characters believe they have found a nest of solitude and a private corner, they are constantly being filmed and broadcast to the audience. IR: What aspects of Orwell's original novel were you most excited to explore when you first came on board? JR: I think that one of the biggest aspects that really appealed to me was making an audience feel complicit and how easy it is to be complicit in these things. You look on social media or regular media and find yourself going, 'What am I doing to fix that?' I think 1984 is great at showing a society in which you can't do anything. Your literal thoughts are policed to prevent you from acting out. I think so often we see so much happening in our world, but we find it hard to get involved. Don't get me wrong, people are doing incredible things the world over in contrast to that, but I think it's petrifying to see how these regimes get into power. In our world today, the rise of the far right is quite scary. 1984, as a novel and as a play says, yes, it is, but this is how it happens and this is how they do it. That's really interesting, exciting, and terrifying, but also insightful within our production to see how that happens and maybe how much you play a part in that as an audience member. IR: There's also an increased amount of AV elements being used in your version of the show. Can you tell us more about the impact that'll have on the show? JR:  So the big thing for me, both from the original novel and from Adam's script, is this idea of surveillance. The phrase Orwellian has become part of our vernacular, but when you actually think about what that means... right now I'm in this room and there's a CCTV camera in the corner. There's a webcam looking back at me. There are three cameras on my phone. We're constantly surrounded by them. The more and more research I did into current political systems, everything we see is because someone has a camera in your face at all times. I became really interested in this idea of surveillance and live cameras. Alongside Dan Light, our incredible AV designer, we're working out how that comes into it. At all times in our production, even when characters believe they have found a nest of solitude and a private corner, they are constantly being filmed and broadcast to the audience. We've got an incredible statement wall that we're going to use in a very exciting way with our live AV, but it all comes back to that idea of surveillance from the novel, from this script, and from our world today. How do you feel when even your most intimate conversations are being picked up on and broadcast to the world? IR: As we're speaking today you're midway through rehearsals for the show. How has that process been so far? Once you're working alongside the cast, how much of what you had planned changes once everyone is in the same room? JR: Our first two weeks were with our three principal actors, playing Winston, Julia, and O'Brien. They're the major voices in many of the scenes, so we figured out what the play was, and when Adam the writer came to see a run-through of that, I can't remember what his comment was, but he said, 'Maybe think about something else happening at that moment' and I went, 'Oh, Adam, there's another play on top of this play once we bring in the ensemble and cameras and equipment into it'. I think he was very excitedly blown away by the scale of what we were trying to create. This week has been bringing ensemble into that, and in short, a week ago we had this amazing torture scene. Now we have an amazing torture scene with three live cameras and five additional bodies. I'm not giving anything away, but we're doing some interesting things. Everything gets enhanced in these two weeks. In terms of what we plan versus what happens in the room, the greatest thing for me in working with actors is the creativity. Actors are incredible creatures in how they can make something work. If there's a line that's sticking for you, an actor comes in with their own interpretation, and you go, 'That's exactly what it is.' It's been their input into it, both the three principles and our incredible ensemble, of not how we've changed things, but how we've evolved things, we've made it better. To my creative team, I always say, 'Your genius is better than my genius'. I believe that if we share ideas, they will grow and become better, and everyone is there for a reason. Everyone has been incredible in bringing their own ideas, innovation, creativity, and genius into the room to enhance the production further. 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

1984: A Unique Theatre Experience  returns to London later this year for a strictly limited 12-week run at Hackney Town Hall. George Orwell’s iconic dystopian novel is being reimagined by director Jack Reardon ( Artistic Director of Stagecraft, one of Ireland’s largest and leading youth theatres) , with a script adapted from George Orwell’s novel by Adam Taub. The show is being produced by Pure Expression, a site-specific theatre company that reimagines classic stories in unique environments. They've previously worked with institutions such as the Grant Museum of Zoology, the Jewish Museum London and Manchester City Library. 1984: A Unique Theatre Experience last ran at Hackney Town Hall in 2023 between October and December. This updated version of the experience will expand upon the 2023 version of the show, with new AV elements and a new cast. The roles of O'Brien, Julia and Winston were previously played by Jude Akuwudike, Kit Reeve and Declan Rodgers. Adam Taub, the Executive Producer of Pure Expression had this to say about the shows return: This is a new iteration of the show and far more ambitious. We have a brand new cast and creative team that have created a bold new vision for the show. There will be innovative digital mapping, video projection and AV work from creators who have recently worked in the West End, including the Haymarket’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. This production of 1984 is more visceral and more challenging for the audience. Why do we continually return to 1984? Because it has never lost its relevance. Because its warning of a dystopian future is one that we can all too easily imagine today. Jack Reardon, the director of 1984: A Unique Theatre Experience said the following: Open your computer, search the news, scroll through Instagram, post on Twitter - what has the algorithm decided is best for you today? Is it real? Does it matter? Once you believe it to be true, isn't that what counts? It doesn't take much to equate Orwell's 1984 to our own 2024. Whether it's news coverage, the constant awareness of phone, web or surveillance cameras or the increasing volatility of global politics.1984 remains as iconic today as when it was first published, only now we don't have to look far to imagine Orwell's dystopian world. But it's not all doom and gloom. When Adam invited me to be the director for the return, I immediately looked forward to inviting audiences into Hackney Town Hall and into a new world of ‘vigilance, eternal vigilance’. This production aims to give audiences an insight into what surveillance truly means, using the latest techniques in AV technology in an entirely original and innovative way. This is a site-specific, multimedia approach to the text, colliding Orwell’s world with our very own. The creative team that Adam and I have put together want to take the text to extraordinary new dimensions. The show will be lit by Ben Jacobs, winner of the 2022 Offie award for Best Lighting Designer with Salome, with Video and AV from Dan Light, whose video design was lauded in Sarah Snook’s West End performance of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Munotida Chinyanga, sound designer and Ruth Badila, set and props designer, complete the creative team. 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

An immersive experience based on the life of Elvis Presley is set to open in London later this year. Produced by Layered Reality - creators of Jeff Wayne's The War of The Worlds: The Immersive Experience and The Gunpowder Plot - will debut Elvis Evolution in 2025 at a Central London location. Photo: Elvis Presley Enterprises LLC While the real-life Elvis never performed on stage in the UK, the show will feature a concert experience where a life-sized digital Elvis will perform some of his biggest hits. It'll be preceded by a journey through his life - from Graceland, to New York and Los Angeles, before heading to Las Vegas - where he took up a seven-year residency between 1969 and 1976. Layered Reality will bring Elvis back through AI and holographic projection, as well as augmented reality, live theatre and multi-sensory effects. To aid the creation of the show, the company have been given access to thousands of Elvis’s personal photos and hours of his home video archive to create new AI Elvis performances that have never been seen before. Photo: Elvis Presley Enterprises LLC Founder and CEO of Layered Reality   Andrew McGuinness had this to say on the upcoming experience... Elvis Evolution is a next-generation tribute to the musical legend that is Elvis Presley. Elvis maintains superstar status globally and people around the world no longer want to sit there and passively receive entertainment – they want to be a part of it. It’ll be a memory-making experience that will be a bucket list item for Elvis fans and admirers around the world; people can step into the world of Elvis, walk in his shoes and celebrate his extraordinary musical legacy. The experience will also feature an Elvis-themed bar and restaurant on site, with live music, DJs and performances. Set to debut in London, Elvis Evolution will later open in multiple cities around the world including Las Vegas, Tokyo and Berlin. Photos: Elvis Presley Enterprises LLC To find out more about the experience, and to get presale access before the general sale, visit layeredreality.com/elvis Stay up to date on this and everything else immersive in London by following us on Instagram  or X .

Immersive newcomers Muddled Marauders will forever change how you look at carrots and parsnips with their surreal debut show, Vegetables. Photo: Muddled Marauders Clerkenwell Bio Botanics has opened the doors of its underground research centre to the public for the first time. They're hosting a product showcase of their groundbreaking biophysical work, and are looking for trialists. That's about as much information as was public about Vegetables, the debut immersive theatrical show from Muddled Marauders, until last week when it opened. Wrapped in secrecy since it was first announced in May, the producers have been tight-lipped about exactly what to expect, and for good reason. It's a show with an absolutely absurd premise that is best enjoyed with no prior knowledge of what is to come. Directed by Nathan Ess, the show has received backing from Arts Council England and is inspired by the likes of Julia Davis (creator and star of BBC's Nighty Night and Sky/HBO's Sally4Eva), Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror and writer/director Charlie Kaufman. While this is Muddled Marauders' first immersive theatrical show, they've been operating since 2016 in the underground rave scene and are best known for creating elaborate immersive parties in disused spaces. Photo: Muddled Marauders The show's story revolves around Dr. Angela Hass ( Adie Mueller) , a scientist whose recent breakthrough promises to 'fix you in ways you didn't know you could be fixed'. It's little surprise given the show's title, but it involves vegetables and in the best way possible, is absolutely ludicrous. Audiences are eased into the show first with welcome drinks provided by Dr. Hass' lab assistant Veronica ( Michelle Roberston) and a peek behind the plastic curtains that are scattered throughout their underground research centre. There's dozens of carrots, onions and parsnips floating in jars all over the sprawling hallways of their laboratory, and stems of broccoli hooked up to enough wires and sensors that Hass could probably trace which field they were grown in if desired. Photo: Muddled Marauders Over the show's 90-minute duration, the absurdity of the story ramps up to a comical degree. A scene midway through in which all of the trialists are offered a slice of carrot to eat leads to a moment so surreal we were in danger of choking from how funny it was. Later moments touch upon more serious topics surrounding consent and sexual assault, but they're not the main focus of the show's narrative and are only alluded to briefly. While it's light on the kind of immersive elements that some audience members might expect, there are opportunities for those willing to get involved - though it doesn't lead to much more than some brief improv between the cast and audience. Set across two main rooms, those who attend will also find themselves seated for much of the show's duration. For a first outing into immersive theatre, Muddled Marauders have produced a show that's unique and different to everything else currently playing. They're a company to watch out for in the future and if you're willing to follow them into an undisclosed basement in Clerkenwell, it makes for a hell of a story to tell friends and colleagues about the following day. Photos: Muddled Mauraders ★★★★ Vegetables runs until 23rd June in a secret location in Clerkenwell. To find out more and apply for tickets, visit https://www.clerkenwell-bio-botanics.co.uk

Vegetables, a new immersive show for audiences of up to 13 people per performance is set to open at a secret location in Clerkenwell this June. Produced by Muddled Marauders , the show is set to run from 8th to 23rd June. The show's description is as follows: Clerkenwell Bio Botanics is inviting guests for a product showcase at their secret underground research centre. Dr Angela Haas has built a machine that can fix you in ways you didn’t think you could be fixed.. follow this link to be apply to be one of our lucky trialists. To attend, audience members must apply via clerkenwell-bio-botanics.co.uk The Arts Council England-funded show is directed and written by Nathan Ess and edited by Dan Wye (Seayonce). The show is inspired by the work of Julia Davis, Charlie Kaufman and the Channel 4/Netflix series Black Mirror. Vegetables takes places at a secret location in Clerkenwell from 8th to 23rd June. Tickets are available via clerkenwell-bio-botanics.co.uk and are priced at £40 per person.

R Space Productions, the producers of upcoming immersive horror escape experience DEATHCELL: Magenta, have released an official trailer and production images ahead of the show opening next month in Hackney Wick for a limited two-week run. The show is described as a 'wild and thrilling experience, combining theatrical cinema, time-pressured puzzle solving and impossible decisions', and is the follow-up to 2018's DEATHCELL, which won Best Out Of Season Attraction at the 2019 ScareCON Awards. Built on chaos and corruption, DEATHCELL is a formidable institution of abused government power. It’s a heart-pounding prison of puzzles, punishment and paranoia. A problematic penitentiary where decisions determine fate. In this modern dystopia, inmates are treated as players in a political prison, fighting for survival and subject to pained puzzles where choice is a weapon of fate. You must select to survive. Photos: R Space Productions R Space Productions are a first-of-its-kind hybrid company, combining award-winning productions and experiential immersive workshop experiences alongside creative entertainment services, attraction design and creative, operations management, event marketing and more. Driven by a core team of just six members with more than 30 years combined experience in the live entertainment industry, and led by founder and managing director Steph Ricketts, R Space Productions is on a mission to lead the way in immersive entertainment, creating see-it-to-believe-it experiences. DEATHCELL: Magenta Trailer (via R Space Productions) Steph Ricketts, Founder & Managing Director of R Space Productions, commented: I can't wait for the world to discover what awaits from R Space Productions. Our upcoming show, DEATHCELL: MAGENTA, is set to leave a lasting impression, marking our most daring venture to date. By blending elements of cinema, immersive theatre, escape room puzzles, and the thrill of horror, we're pushing boundaries and crafting new forms of escapism with compelling storytelling. Our journey began six years ago with nothing but dedication and passion. Witnessing the team at R Space Productions dive wholeheartedly into this project fills me with immense pride, leaving myself and many excited for the future that lies ahead. Photos: R Space Productions Liam McClean, Head of Marketing & Sales at R Space Productions adds the following... This experience is like nothing you’ve seen before. We’ve created something unique, innovative and next-level scary. DEATHCELL: MAGENTA is one-of-a-kind, and I can’t wait to hear the screams of pure terror and excitement. Photos: R Space Productions Once guests have secured their tickets, they'll be invited to Rewind Rentals (a nod to 80’s nostalgia and the late Blockbuster Video) to enjoy an exclusive screening of an unreleased short film horror-flick, MAGENTA. But as the lines blur between fiction and reality, the true test lies in making it to the end of the film in one piece... are you ready to push play? Deathcell: Magenta will run from 21st February to 1st March 2025 at an undisclosed location in Hackney Wick. Tickets are on sale now, starting from £30.00. For more info and to book, visit deathcell.co.uk

Photo: R Space Productions Immersive Rumours: Hi Steph. Thanks for sitting down with us today. Do you mind introducing yourself and telling us a bit about R Space Productions? Steph Ricketts: Yes, I’m Steph and I'm the Managing Director and Founder of R Space Productions . Back when we started R Space in 2018, we just wanted to create a space for people to come and share things they we were working on, make things together and share their skill sets. I had a project name called ‘The Space’ for a while in my head. It’s grown loads in the last couple of years, but when we started, Staines (which was the main hub for most of us) didn’t have a lot of arts or creative areas outside of places we worked at the time, such as Thorpe Park. We'd wait every year for the Halloween season to come along, but we'd get the itch for it around February time, so it was about asking, 'What if we did it all year round? What if we got to do this full-time because we're the one’s creating it?’ The goal of doing these shows [with R Space] has always been to grow people's skill sets and create a space for people to come and be in the industry while learning from us at the same time IR: We're speaking today because DEATHCELL: Magenta is opening later this month, but I'd love to talk about the previous DEATHCELL show that took place back in 2018. How did the idea for that original show come about? Steph: I’d had the idea of creating a prison-themed experience for a while. I'd become weirdly fascinated with prisons, so every time I went away on holiday or travelling, I’d go see a prison to learn about history and culture. When I went to San Francisco, I went to see Alcotraz. Add in my love for graphic novels, comics, and anime, and that’s where the story started - I wanted to tell a story about a prison that wasn’t typical and more fictional. I had snippets of what the story could be at the time, but it wasn’t cohesive. I wrote a 30-page document explaining what DEATHCELL is and what it was like to be in there. There was lore and different paths characters were going to take that would impact their future. People hear me say this all the time, but I’m such a fan of the film Fight Club. What I love about that story is that things can be in front of you the whole time, and you don’t realise. It’s the same with the SAW franchise. As a player in Jigsaw’s games, if you had just listened to the rules without overthinking it, you could have walked out alive. I was heavily inspired by that. IR: For those who didn't attend the 2018 show, can you tell us a bit about what that experience involved? Steph: The best way to describe the show is that it was an introduction or pilot into this world. It showed guests what a day is like inside this prison through the eyes of one character branded ‘Yellow.’ We don’t know their real name because when you go into DEATHCELL, you’re branded with a colour, and your identity is removed from you. Within the world of DEATHCELL, individuals either handed themselves in or were forcibly taken in by masked henchmen known as ‘The Flys.’ This choice determined their journey. Those who resisted faced a harsher induction, such as electrocution, while those who surrendered were taken to the shower room for waterboarding. (Which is still rough!) So at the start, guests were split and experienced one of these paths as they entered. We had actors who were really happy to invest in those scenes and went for it. People came out saying that the waterboarding scene was one of the hardest to watch. After you’d been inducted (as guests) you would all witness a fight between two of the inmates in DEATHCELL named ‘players’. These characters weren't just banged up in a cell somewhere, they were fighting for their lives and earning coins, or credits as we call them, to keep themselves alive. We had stooges planted in the audience, who would get picked out to be part of this fight. We wanted to make the audience feel like they were living and breathing this world, and it could be them who gets picked out next, injecting fear into people. Audiences didn’t think they were part of it, but members of the team were planted as stooges but just in their normal clothes. Before you know it, they’re being beaten up and then on the floor. After that, they were dragged into their cells, which is where the escape room elements of the show came in, and people had to play different games to earn credits. Once you had these credits, they'd get to use them in a vending machine, which sounds completely random, but it just makes sense in this world. After that, they were dragged into their cells, which is where the escape room elements of the show came in, and people had to play different games to earn credits. Once you had these credits, they'd get to use them on a vending machine, which sounds completely random, but the items inside it - from weapons to packets of Magic Stars, USBs with data on them - they’d all help you in various ways. Without revealing too much, the most unexpected items often held the greatest value in escaping DEATHCELL. Some guests would casually snack on their picked bag of Magic Stars chocolate, unaware that their choice could impact their gameplay. Eventually, inside the Warden’s office, guests discovered the Warden’s connection to Yellow, unraveling more of their relationship before the experience ended in a chaotic chase sequence. It's been really fun going back and looking at that show, now knowing that we're going back to the very beginning of the story, with a world that has expanded massively beyond what this original did. DEATHCELL (2018) Photos: R Space Productions IR: That original show also set up the world of DEATHCELL and explained why those prisons exist right? Steph: Yeah. The reason these penitentiaries exist in this universe is to bring harmony to people. Imagine a world where there's lots of unrest, lots of divided communities. Within this world, a system is brought in called the ‘Harmony Act’ to ensure that people are behaving themselves and if someone upsets you, or you upset someone, you or them can nominate each other to be picked up and taken to these penitentiaries to be conditioned into behaving better within society. As time went on, they became more and more corrupt, and this one in particular became the most corrupt and is so run down that it isn't part of that system anymore. The Warden became obsessed with playing with the prisoners that came in, and therefore, it's branded as DEATHCELL. IR: I can't recall many other shows from around that time that combined immersive theatre, scare attractions and escape rooms into one experience. Would you describe the original DEATHCELL as unique for its time? Steph: I think it was bold. I can't say for sure we were the first to do it, but as far as I’m aware, we were one of the first to merge those three elements - immersive storytelling escape room experience and run-out scare attraction - and we've just built on it since then. Escape rooms were big at that point, I remember them coming out around 2015, especially horror scare rooms, and there were a lot of escape room elements starting to be experimented with in the scare world, but I feel like we were just really bold at mashing it all together and saying, ‘This could work. We’re just going to go for it.’ Now, I can't see us ever not doing that. It's great to see how quickly the horror and scare industry has expanded in the last six years. Back when I started scare acting 15 years ago, it was all very linear, on-shoulders experiences. I can't speak for what went on in America or in Europe, but definitely within the UK. Nowadays, people want a story; people want to be immersed as soon as they go in and want to feel like they're living and breathing it. Video: R Space Productions IR: Are there any stand-out experiences that you remember combining at least two of those three elements? Steph: Back in 2015, I went to see a show called Generation of Z: Apocalypse ; it was by a company from New Zealand. They’d done the Edinburgh Fringe with the show, and I think it was in Mile End when it was London, but that was the first show I went to that had immersive scares, and it broke the rule book to what I knew it to be. It inspired me to want to create theatre like that. I'd worked in scare attractions and was a bit desensitised, but I went into that show, and I was running through underground corridors away from zombies. Obviously, I’m a scare actor, so I know it's not real, but I was running away from it, and I really believed I was in that world for an hour and a half. You had to help someone make it to the operating theatre, distract a zombie, and rescue people. It just opened my eyes to the idea that scare could be so much more. That was a show that really inspired me, and it was one of the first ones I'd seen or experienced something outside of the usual linear attractions that I'd been so used to seeing and performing in. Photo: R Space Productions People want a story; people want to be immersed as soon as they go in and want to feel like they're living and breathing it. IR: DEATHCELL: Magenta, the prequel, is a couple of weeks away from opening, but at one point, you'd planned on opening a sequel to that original 2018 show, right? Steph: Yeah. Back in 2020, we were supposed to do, as we now call it DEATHCELL 2 as a project name. We were looking at a venue at the time, and then obviously COVID came about. We were maybe one or two weeks away from releasing tickets. We're very lucky that we didn't because obviously, the pandemic happened, and we were just about to sign onto a venue. We spent lockdown rewriting that experience. We spent hours on Zoom with various members of the team, just workshopping it, rewriting it, and Magenta soon had more of a part to play in that story. However, the world hasn't seen DEATHCELL 2 yet…and it’s still in the works. IR: Can you tell us a bit about the character of Magenta and how she fits into the wider DEATHCELL world? Steph: When we originally did the pilot, Magenta wasn't in that document or the concept I'd written. However, when we went to add in the escape room elements of the 2018 show, we were questioning, “Why are the games there? Who's been making them?” We came up with the idea of a character called Magenta. We didn't know what she looked like back then; we didn't know what her part in DEATHCELL was apart from that she's the person who creates these games. We didn't know where she necessarily sat in the story, but it gave us enough scope to go ‘Okay, she's the mastermind behind the games’. It gave us a concept to work with to make sure that the games and the theming in those rooms made sense, but it wasn't really communicated to the guests. From an audience point of view, you wouldn't know Magenta existed. Since 2020, we've developed Magenta further, and when we started to talk about this experience, we went ‘Well, if this is a prequel, why don't we tell the story of Magenta and DEATHCELL becoming DEATHCELL?' Photo: R Space Productions Everything needs to have a purpose, so we wouldn't put a jump scare in if there was no need to put a jump scare in. IR: How does your approach to creating these experiences change depending on the length? The 2018 show was 30 minutes, a typical Fright Nights experience is under 10 minutes, but DEATHCELL: Magenta is a full hour-long experience. Steph: When it comes to a lot of scare attractions I’ve worked in at Halloween events such as Fright Nights, you are in there for about 7 to 10 minutes, sometimes quicker depending on if you run out! You only have that limited time to tell an entire story. The theming, the scripts, the character work, the type of scares you have… they need to be snappy because if people don't get the story in those 7 minutes, they potentially come out saying ‘I don't know what I just saw’. You have to be very self-explanatory or utilise things like your marketing, queue lines and your pre-show characters to really tell that story. It’s got to pack a punch as you don't have time to delve into a backstory or characters. Equally, some people don’t necessarily want to hear a story, they just want to be scared, right? These attractions always require the same amount of background work, but guests might not get to see all of that. The types of performance you do is going to be different in fast-paced attractions because someone is going to be in a room for a couple of seconds, and then they're going to be into the next one. How you deliver that performance is very different from how we've got to do it in Magenta. We have the luxury of delving deeper into a story and deeper into the characters. In the world where you’ve got 60 minutes, you have more time to tell a story and delve into emotions a lot more, however, guests are going to be in the space for longer so you’ve got to add more details in to make sure that they aren’t looking around and noticing all the gaps in your experience. IR: Do you feel like you need to pack in loads of scares to match people's expectations if they're used to a Fright Nights style experience? Steph: We still have elements for people needing that scare factor. At the end of the day, that’s where we all started. Without saying too much, there are bits in the show that have that, but all of it is with purpose. I feel like everything needs to have a purpose, so we wouldn't put a jump scare in if there was no need to put a jump scare in. We’re quite good at having honest debates about that - does this character really need to be in there, and what does the guest take from it? For us, it’s all about the story, the world building and being immersed as soon as you go in, forgetting that you're in Hackney Wick and have come to watch a show. People are booking because they want to be immersed in the story. Photo: R Space Productions IR: You mentioned earlier that the 2018 DEATHCELL experience had multiple paths for people to go down. Is that the case with this new experience? Steph: This one is more guided. Guests will naturally have their own say in how their room experience goes because of the puzzles they are doing and how they go about them. But for this experience, the end goal is always the same because we want to lead people into the next chapter, which is DEATHCELL 2. With Magenta, we want guests to come along for the journey and not have different outcomes at this point because it’ll confuse the story later on. Your end goal is always the same, but your experience in each room and how various characters or things around you will react will depend on what you do.  DEATHCELL 2 will definitely have elements of multi-route. The guests will decide how the show is going to end without knowing it, and then we'll have, in theory, a couple of minutes to switch that on and deliver one of 3 or 4 different endings. Photo: R Space Productions IR: What were your earliest experiences with scare attractions, and how did you find yourself working in that world? Steph: I'm a big believer in fate. You might not understand it at the time, but three years later, you'll look back and understand why. In 2010, I finished studying Performing Arts at Bath Spa University. I was the only third year on my course who didn't get picked for a show - all of them had been picked to be main leads in West Side Story, at The Minack Theatre in Cornwall, and I was devastated. At that point, you feel like you've failed, right? You're like, ‘I'm the only person who's not been picked. What's wrong with me?’ So I felt quite defeated. I remember sitting in this empty house in Bath, and I said to myself, ‘I'm just going to try and make it, whatever make it means’. My family lived near Chessington World of Adventures, so I looked on the Merlin website, and they were doing scare auditions for Scream in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds in London. I thought, ‘Oh, that's the dungeon thing I went to last year and quickly ran up the stairs from’. I was such a wuss back in the day, I'd been to the London Dungeons once before and screamed all the way round. Maybe a week later, I picked up The Stage newspaper, opened it up, and there was the same advert for [Madame Tussaud’s] Scream in there. I thought it was fate. The auditions were in Old Street, so I went to it and then didn't think I was going to get it. I finished the audition, waiting for the call out, and they called me back for the following day for what they call Scare School. I remember leaving thinking, ‘Oh, I actually did something; they want to see me’. I went through two or three days of Scare School, which is basically learning how to be a scare performer. Testing your agility, physical endurance, character work, how you can apply physical theatre to what you're doing, and I'm quite a physical performer - which actually shows in Magenta - you can see in her in her physicality and the way she moves around the space, she's quite creaturesque, or less human than others. I was offered the job to be a scare performer for four months, and I just found my thing. I was suddenly with people who were on the same wavelength as me; I was around so many creative people of different ages. I ended up being extended, and then as more scare actors came in, they’d start talking about other events such as Fright Nights at Thorpe Park and how they go and do it every year. The following year, I auditioned, and I was cast in The Asylum, which was one of their best-loved scare attractions. Over the next couple of years, I was a Show Captain at Thorpe Park for Fright Nights, so I got to look after the performers every Halloween, and it's just gone on from there. I’ve worked on attractions like Saw Alive and Cabin In The Woods, and I eventually became a Team Leader of Entertainment at Thorpe Park, which is where I met a lot of the R Space members. In 2019 as Entertainments Experience Manager, I got to write experiences like Trailers for Fright Nights, and got to work on other experiences such as Derren Brown’s Ghost Train and work globally on the Tussauds brand in 2022 and 2023. More recently, I became a Project Manager for large-scale events such as Fright Nights, Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest, and working with loads of different stakeholders in the industry. IR: Looking back on your career so far, R Space has been a constant for nearly half of it. I guess R Space wouldn't exist without you being in that world.. Steph: Yeah. I've gone from being an actor who fell into doing scare acting for four months to this becoming my entire life, and R Space has been a thread through that for the last seven years, but the jobs that I've done have 100% helped me to become the person I am in R Space. I think R Space has also allowed me to grow in other areas of work because I've been out there in the eld with less protection and structure, so I’ve had to go and the answers myself. I feel like I’ve been out and earned my stripes to make me a great all-rounder, but I still have lots to learn and I still enjoy dipping back into scare acting ever so often. At Fright Nights, I always try to go back in and do some scaring in the new attractions. As the industry grows and grows, I think there's more weight on the performers now. They've got seven minutes to get this whole story across, whereas beforehand, and not to discredit it, you could focus more on jump scares, and people would be scared and run out. That still works, but now people want a story; people want elaborate costumes. The stakes are higher now when you're scare performing because people expect more.   Photo: R Space Productions IR: You're set to be playing the titular Magenta in the upcoming show. What has it been like stepping into Magenta's shoes? It's quite a different kind of role from what you've typically done in scare attractions. Steph: Yeah. I haven't performed outside of scare performing for a really, really long time. I'd say that out of the entire project, that's the bit that scares me the most. All the bits that we need to sort in the next couple weeks, not so much. The performing aspect makes me go ‘Oh God, I haven't done this for a really long time.' I felt a bit self-conscious about doing it, but that's because the type of performance I've done recently has been very physical without any dialogue. When we were shaping this character on set, the team were amazing. Jimm, our Head of Creative and Production, has been our main lead in terms of the short film elements. He and the other performers around me really helped me feel at ease more when shooting. When we shot [the short film content] in August, that was probably one of the highlights of my year. I hadn't performed in a really long time, but I came away feeling like I'd challenged myself. I'm always thinking about how to play her or how to be her, but it's been a journey. I'm a great physical performer when it comes to scare acting, but Magenta isn't scare just acting. She's telling the story. IR: Finally, what do you hope people will take away from the experience? Steph: What I am most excited about is for people to be immersed as soon as they get there, see how big the story is, how much we have thought about everything, and how much work has gone into delivering it. We could have easily just done a short film, we could have just done an escape room, we could have just done a piece of theatre, but we decided to bash them all together. I want people to come away with it stuck in their minds. Either because of the story or how we’ve delivered the experience. DEATHCELL: Magenta will run from 21st February to 1st March 2025 at a secret location in Hackney Wick. Tickets are on sale now, starting from £30.00. For more info and to book, visit deathcell.co.uk A massive thank you to Steph and Liam from R Space for taking the time to sit down with us for this interview.

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 franticly 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 that 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... ★★★ 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

Following its run at Leeds Playhouse last summer, Melting Pot have announced that the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of the Paranormal Activity films will haunt the West End this winter when it transfers to The Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-week season. A new story inspired by the worldwide horror phenomenon, Paranormal Activity, a new story live on stage, is directed by immersive theatre pioneer and Punchdrunk’s Founder and Artistic Director, Felix Barrett and written by playwright Levi Holloway, whose theatrical thriller Grey House chilled Broadway audiences, will begin performances on Friday 5 December, 2025. Paranormal Activity reimagines the modern ghost story with an unsettling intimacy only theatre can provide. Immersing audiences in an atmosphere of creeping dread, unseen forces, and psychological tension, Levi Holloway’s script offers a bold reinterpretation of the original, blending domestic horror with mind-bending theatricality. Felix Barrett, known for breaking boundaries between audience and performer, brings his signature visionary style to the production. With innovative staging and chilling soundscapes, Paranormal Activity invites audiences to witness the inexplicable up close—and feel the fear in real time. Praised for its inventive storytelling and terrifying atmosphere, the West End transfer promises to amplify the experience even further, making it a must-see event for thrill-seekers and theatre lovers alike. Paranormal Activity will undertake a North American tour this autumn, visiting the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; Center Theatre Group, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles; Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC and American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, ahead of opening in London this December. Felix Barrett Photo: Stephen Dobbie Director Felix Barrett says of the West End transfer: I’m so thrilled that Paranormal will have a chance to ensnare and unnerve audiences in London later this year! From seeing the advertising campaign of the film twenty years ago, where you watched cinema audiences leap out of their chairs in horror, I have long wondered how you could recreate that visceral reaction in a theatre setting. How do you bring one of the most frightening films to life? How do you break the inherent safety that a plush West End theatre offers? It’s been an incredible challenge, and we cannot wait to see how London audiences respond! Playwright Levi Holloway continues: Collaborating with Felix Barrett to create an actual nightmare has been nothing short of a dream. Relishing in a shared language of dread, we’ve conspired to create something impossible, mixing the familiar with the uncanny, heart with horror. London audiences have a nose for honesty on stage and little patience for anything else. They’ll find it here, right alongside all the mischief we’ve made to trouble their sleep. Levi Holloway Felix Barrett is the founder and Artistic Director of Punchdrunk. He has conceived all of Punchdrunk’s shows, including Viola's Room, which has just opened at The Shed in New York, The Burnt City, The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable, The Borough (Aldeburgh Music), The Crash Of The Elysium (MIF and 2012 Cultural Olympiad), The Duchess Of Malfi (English National Opera), It Felt Like A Kiss (a collaboration with Adam Curtis, Damon Albarn for Manchester International Festival), The Masque Of The Red Death, Faust and The Firebird Ball. Felix also directed the company’s award-winning Sleep No More. First experienced by audiences in London in 2003, it has since travelled to Boston, New York, where it ran for 14 years, Shanghai, where it has become the longest running show in the city's history, and will open in Seoul in Summer 2025. Felix is a graduate and Honorary Doctorate in Drama of the University of Exeter and was appointed an MBE in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to theatre. Levi Holloway is a Chicago-based artist. As a playwright, world premieres include Pinocchio at Chicago Children’s Theatre, Haven Place, Grey House and most recently, Turret at A Red Orchid Theatre, with which he is an ensemble member. His play Grey House ran on Broadway in 2023. Levi is the co-founder of Neverbird Project, a youth-based Deaf and hearing theatre company. He spent a decade devising theatre with the Sign/Voice theatre program at Chicago’s Bell Elementary, one of the country’s oldest and most prolific Deaf and hearing integrated schools, founded in 1917. The creative team also includes Fly Davis as Set and Costume Designer, Illusions by Chris Fisher, Anna Watson as Lighting Designer, Gareth Fry as Sound Designer, Video Design by Luke Halls and Casting Direction by Stuart Burt CDG and Ginny Schiller CDG. Paranormal Activity will run at The Ambassadors Theatre from 5th December 2025 to 28th February 2026. Tickets are priced from £25.00 and can be booked via paranormalonstage.com

For one-night only next month, the world of Donnie Darko will be recreated for an interactive, tech-enhanced party beneath Waterloo Station as part of Donnie Darko's Halloween House Party. Image: Cinaethsia Productions The event is being produced by Cinaesthesia Productions , who are currently developing a three-hour immersive experience based on the film set to open in London in 2025. The event will give visitors their first chance to step into the tangent universe alongside Donnie and Frank the Rabbit. The event description for Donnie Darko's Halloween House Party is below.... Greeted at the door by Donnie Darko himself, guests will step through a facade modelled after the Darko's residence. Inside, actors, live music, film screenings, themed bars, and tech-enhanced visuals come together to create an immersive, dream-like experience that mirrors the film’s eerie tangent universe. The night will feature surprise character appearances, interactive moments, and references to key scenes from the movie, pulling you deeper into Donnie’s surreal world, all under the unsettling influence of Frank the Rabbit. Upon entering through a facade inspired by the Darko house, partygoers will find themselves in a surreal, mind-bending world featuring interactive moments and references to key scenes from the film. Expect live performances, 80s-inspired tunes, and themed treats as the Darko universe comes to life like never before. Image: Cinaethesia Productions More about Cinaesthesia Productions... Cinæsthesia Productions is a boundary-pushing immersive theatre company nestled within the cultural tapestry of London, UK. Their international team of imaginative pioneers creates innovative productions that blur reality and fantasy. Through innovative technology, storytelling, and craftsmanship, they transport audiences into extraordinary narratives. With diverse backgrounds and unwavering passion, they craft unforgettable, multisensory journeys that engage and inspire. Going beyond traditional production, weaving captivating wonders and inventing breath-taking worlds. Prepare for an immersive journey that defies reality and transcends time and space. Their mastery of technology brings holographic landscapes and interactive characters to life, merging reality and imagination. Find out more about Donnie Darko's Halloween House Party, check out the event's website here . Donnie Darko's Halloween House Party runs in Waterloo for one-night only on 1st November 2024. Tickets are priced at £21.50 and can be purchased via feverup.com

Image: SWAMP Five years after its initial launch, Isklander , the award-winning online mystery trilogy that captivated over 100,000 players worldwide, is making a highly anticipated return for a limited six-week run. Created by immersive company SWAMP (formerly Swamp Motel), Isklander is a gripping, multi-layered trilogy made up of Plymouth Point, The Mermaid’s Tongue, and The Kindling Hour, that takes place entirely online and blurs the divide between fiction and reality. Players must unravel a conspiracy involving secret societies, corporate corruption, and ancient artefacts—all while interacting with live performers who respond to their choices in real-time. The game’s immersive storytelling and innovative format quickly gained international recognition, leading to a TV adaptation deal with Gaumont - the studio behind Netflix's Lupin and Narcos, and Sky Atlantic's Tin Star. Now, in celebration of its five-year anniversary, Isklander is back, giving both returning fans and first-time players the chance to experience the mystery that started it all. Since its debut in 2020, Isklander has been lauded for its unique format, blending gaming, film, live performance, and interactive storytelling. Unlike traditional online games, Isklander requires no downloads or special software—players navigate a dynamic online world, receiving live video calls and uncovering hidden secrets as they race against the clock. All three shows received widespread acclaim, with The Guardian  describing Plymouth Point, the first instalment in the trilogy as 'inventive, gorgeously designed and technically dazzling'. The Stage described Isklander as 'a whirlwind of engaging storytelling... an innovative, hugely enjoyable embrace of digital possibilities'. Priced at £35 per part, per group (up to six players), teams can dive back into the investigation, following a trail of clues across real and fictional websites, hacking into secret files, and making high-stakes decisions as they interact with live characters. The official descriptions for each part of the Isklander trilogy are as follows: Part 1: Plymouth Point As new members of the Plymouth Point Resident’s Watch, your team must track down a missing woman, Ivy. Corporate espionage, occult horrors, and shadowy cabals stand in your way. Search the internet, crack codes, and uncover the truth before it’s too late. Part 2: The Mermaids Tongue Following Plymouth Point, your team must track down an ancient artefact—the Mermaid’s Tongue. A source of great power, it could spell disaster in the wrong hands. Uncover a murky underworld of high society and the forces hiding in plain sight. Part 3: The Kindling Hour After Plymouth Point and The Mermaid’s Tongue, the Isklander trilogy reaches its thrilling conclusion. Infiltrate a powerful organisation, unravel secrets, and evade capture. Trust no one. Find their weakness… before they find you. Beyond Isklander, Swamp has continued to push the boundaries of immersive entertainment with critically acclaimed productions such as The Drop, Saint Jude and Velvet Pines alongside projects for some of the largest global brands, including Netflix, Amazon Prime and Warner Brothers. All three shows in the Isklander trilogy are priced at £35 per group (up to six people). The trilogy, which takes place entirely online, is running until 26th April 2025. Tickets can be booked via isklander.com