Immersive Review Rundown: Of Cyberpunks & Easter Eggs
Toronto & London show out this week. (FOUR REVIEWS)
This week Katrina takes the MVP honors again with three substantial reviews out of Toronto’s very strong immersive event scene. Watch out NYC & LA, you might just have a neeeeeeeew North American chaaaaaaampion.
Sorry, it’s that week. IYKYK.
Plus: Thomas takes a crack at HiddenCity’s ‘The Great Eggventure’ promotion, which adds a competitive layer to their London urban adventure games.
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FLUX: An Immersive Cyberpunk Experience — Lockwood Immersive
$67.99 CAD; Toronto, Canada; Until April 24
Lockwood Immersive’s latest experience, FLUX, is a cyberpunk-themed romp that blends interactive theatre, trail-based storytelling, and genuinely satisfying puzzles into a highly entertaining evening.
Set inside Seascape, a sci-fi-themed gaming bar in Toronto, FLUX makes clever use of the venue’s existing surroundings to build out its world. Though the majority of the show’s action unfolds on the venue’s upper floor, which was booked out entirely for the event, the experience spills throughout the entire building, including its stairwells, tucked-away corners, and even the outside alleyway. The presence of real-life bar patrons on the main floor, casually playing video and board games, gave the venue an organic sense of life, as though this futuristic underworld genuinely existed and we’d simply dropped in during one of its regular nights. Throughout, a variety of in-universe posters served as both world-building and puzzle elements. Without needing to overhaul a custom space, FLUX crafts an environment that feels expansive and lived-in.
The show consists of four different story trails, each with a distinct narrative and satisfying puzzle arc. A custom webapp was used to direct audience members through each trail, with diegetic puzzles and actor interactions fleshing out the narrative.
FLUX’s three main characters — the bubbly pop star, the affable bartender, and the eccentric scientist — capably delivered their scripted beats while leaving plenty of room for playful improvisation and banter. However, while each trail offered a satisfying narrative arc, the overarching story felt loosely strung together in comparison. Actor coverage also posed occasional challenges. One performer, who featured in three of the four trails, was also frequently occupied running a complex in-world card game. With no clear cues for when it was appropriate to interrupt the game, players were often left in long stretches of ambiguous downtime.
Where FLUX truly shines is in its puzzle design, offering a wide variety of ways to play: word puzzles, decoding, trivia, and even some light social engineering. An arcade station, created in collaboration with Pocket Moon Games, added to the space’s ambiance and provided another unique puzzle peripheral. Compared to other similarly structured trail-based immersive shows I’ve attended, the puzzles at FLUX were definitely more robust. Some puzzling competency is required, but the experience is thoughtfully constructed to deliver satisfying “aha” moments without stalling momentum. In addition, when needed, the cast was quick to offer in-character nudges that kept the flow moving smoothly.
FLUX was a wildly entertaining three-hour experience. While the overarching story could have benefited from stronger narrative cohesion, the individual trails were engaging, the characters memorable, and the puzzle design a clear standout. For fans of Lockwood Immersive’s past work, FLUX represents a confident and impressive step forward in ambition and scope.
— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator
Game of Life (Elephant and Lucy AI) — bluemouth inc.
$15–$60 CAD; Toronto, Canada; Run Concluded
Lucy AI runs as part of the New York La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival Apr 24–25; PWYC 10–70$
In Game of Life, a deeply personal two-part immersive performance by bluemouth inc., audience members are invited to step into the story of company member and performer Lucy Simic, whose real-life Stage 4 cancer diagnosis forms the emotional core of this semi-autobiographical work. Composed of the live experience Elephant and the interactive installation Lucy AI, Game of Life explores care, grief, and memory — both while we are here and after we’re gone.
Elephant places us inside a vibrant, slightly surreal dinner party made up of a cozy living room, and long banquet table. It opens with a poetic meditation on the so-called “elephant” in the room: in this case cancer, and how we choose to engage (or not) with uncomfortable truths, before launching into a blend of communal storytelling, participatory games, dance, and musical covers. The tone often shifts abruptly from whimsical to raw, then back as scenes of playful conversation are followed by aching dances and confrontations about mortality.
Audience members are asked to contribute and connect, sometimes with their stories, sometimes through physical touch. A dinner “course” of illustrated cards prompts deep conversations with strangers. A high-tech tablecloth becomes a collaborative light-and-sound circuit that can only be completed via human connection. Eventually, the table becomes a literal stage for a moving dance sequence where Lucy, slowed and struggling, follows behind her peers.
Lucy AI offers a digital counterpoint. Created by Simic’s friend David Usher (from ReimagineAI and Climate Clock), the piece consists of a custom AI trained on recordings of Lucy’s thoughts, voice, and memories. Audience members speak into a microphone to ask Lucy AI a question, and she responds, sometimes coupling her advice or recollections with videos relevant to the conversation, then asks another question in turn. At times the answers feel very specific and profound. Other times, the responses meander or take longer than expected, much like conversations with any AI. But there’s something quietly poetic about this as well — even though you may feel the arc of the exchange has ended, Lucy AI continues to ask, to try to connect. It’s at times strange and uncanny valley-esque, yet it feels built with so much tenderness. You can’t help but wonder: Did I really speak to Lucy? And if not, does that make the conversation any less meaningful?
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What stayed with me most about Game of Life is how gently it handles something so heavy. It does what immersive work so often sets out to do: foster empathy, invite reflection, and create connection. However, this duo of experiences does so with a surprising sense of ease. There’s no demand to perform grief or expectation that you carry someone else’s pain. Instead, Game of Life invites you to witness, to play, to sing, to dance with a stranger. In doing so, it offers a powerful reminder: sometimes the most radical form of care is creating space for purposeful joy in the midst of sorrow.
— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator
The Great Eggventure- HiddenCity
From £19, London UK;
Games Ongoing,
Eggventure promotion ends 30th April
As the weather improves in the city of London the opportunity is presented for a charming walk through the parks and alleyways of our capital. There is also an opportunity for the city’s bankers to have very noisy post work pints. Please move, men in expensive suits, we have an Easter Egg to win.
Fans of my journalistic output (Hello Mum) might recall I covered a Hidden City walk last Christmas. That show had been given a wintery overhaul that allowed us to admire the festive lights.
Compared to Christmas, Easter has fewer nice window displays (although we spot a few) but it does have Easter Eggs. Hidden City is running three competitions that would allow participants to win extra prizes. There are eggs for the best times in each of the four adventures, as well as runner up prizes, and for ‘Best Team Names’ and the ‘Most Creative Team Photos’. These prize eggs weigh 4 kilograms, which is about the weight of a portly ring-tailed lemur.
The adventure we choose is The Hunt for the Cheshire Cat. This show takes us around Central London, down the Strand and through Hyde Park.
Creatures of Wonderland are going missing and the Cheshire Cat needs someone with Alice’s ability to understand a puzzle. Do we join the Resistance or side with the Queen of Hearts?
We choose the darker path and all I can say is “God Save Us from the Queen”.
I do advise wearing a good pair of walking shoes, as we cover about 4 miles.
The puzzles are fun and we get to follow paths around the city one doesn’t usually travel. Also we saw some Very Good Geese in Hyde Park.
We have to go into three different pubs, which are bursting with post-work drinkers. None of the bar staff were particularly happy when someone with a pocket watch necklace tells them they are there on ‘Royal Business’ at 6pm. You can not skip these prop puzzles and unfortunately they also involve having to make phone calls to listen to voicemails to get the next clue and there is no way of just being sent the text of the call.
That said we do have a lovely summer stroll, get a reward for our dark deeds, see some pretty flowers and no one stole any tarts.
So that’s a win in my books.
— Thomas Jancis, London Correspondent
Performance Review — Outside the March
Toronto, Canada, Run Concluded, $25-$85 CAD
Earlier this year, Outside the March announced their “Outfit the March” initiative, a capital project with the vision of turning virtually any space in Toronto into a fully-functional temporary theatre venue. Through the acquisition of an inventory of mobile production equipment and furniture, the company aims to adapt found spaces into venues for site-specific theater performances. The first show powered by this project takes over Morning Parade, a cozy independent coffee shop in Toronto’s west end. It’s a site that holds specific significance to playwright Rosamund Small, as she spent many afternoons nestled in that very space writing the triptych of autobiographical stories that would eventually become Performance Review.
An hour before the show begins, we’re invited to the venue to purchase coffee and pastries (it is a coffee shop after all) and browse the space. Various furnishings — shelves, lights, chairs — are labeled with IKEA-like tags indicating they are part of the Outfit the March ecosystem. We choose a seat amongst the large communal tables in the room, where several books have been scattered throughout (Fleabag, How I Learned to Drive, Oliver Twist, The Communist Manifesto) each affixed with a personal note from the playwright describing their influence on the show.
Performance Review is structured around seven autobiographical stories, each recounting Small’s worst day while working at seven different jobs — a barista, a TV staffer, a writer, amongst other gigs. It’s a site-specific work that embraces its setting, with Morning Parade effortlessly standing in for the coffee shop of her past, but also transforming into the other sites that appear in the story. The tables, previously resting places for lattes and laptops, become dynamic performance spaces. Small makes ample eye contact, navigates the space with intention, and even gently relocates people (and their beverages) as needed. The café’s lighting is cleverly adapted to shift the atmosphere, while what first appeared to be ordinary café furniture — like a glass pastry case, once filled with pre-show treats — takes on an entirely new function during the performance.
As Small recounts her struggles with imposter syndrome, ambition, self-worth, and the aftermath of sexual assault, she oscillates between humor and heartache, weaving a narrative that is both deeply personal and widely relatable. It’s a brave and earnest performance — made even more notable by the fact that this is Small’s first time performing her own work. Given the completely sold-out run, it’s clear that audiences are offering Performance Review a solid report of its own.
— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator
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