Style: 1920s caper
Where: King William IV, 16 Harper Road, London SE1 6AD

Rating: 5/5 stars

Colab have done it again. Once again, they offer an immersive experience so gripping, so engaging and so thrilling that the audience could have done it twice over and not noticed the time go.

It’s 1926 and the General Strike is on. Various unions are threatened over a debt owed to a cruel and vicious landlord. But revolution is in the air, and so the workers come together to formulate a daring plan. The heist is on.

This caper has pretty much everything you can imagine. There are several daring raids (pulled off only if the audience gets it right), rigged racing, a fight, a wedding, negotiation, speeches, villains, heroes and a stonking bar. there is not a moment during which you aren’t busy. There is not a moment during which you aren’t engaged. There is not a moment where you aren’t challenged. There are puzzles to solve in three separate areas and you get a chance to take part in all of them as the night progresses.

Everything is pitched just right. This is the hallmark of Colab productions. The level of detail and thought put into every aspect of their shows makes them just a different level of immersive. From the set design and props to the detailed thought that goes into every aspect of the audience’s experience they always deliver in spades and Crooks 1926 is no exception. The storyline never gets in the way of the challenges, the challenges never get in the way of the story. It is managed as if an “on rails” experience, yet it is audience-driven and feels wholly organic.

Crooks 1926 kept me gripped throughout. In some ways, I almost missed the moments I’ve had in other shows to quietly take myself out of the action and explore the set, but there was just far too many interesting and fun things to do. Not least, dance at my wedding (yes, of course I was the bride!)

The cast are superb. They managed the audiences – leading us when we needed it, sitting back and letting us lead them when the time was right to do so. When moving the storyline on they made it feel completely natural that they were doing so. Their responsiveness to audience decisions was razor-sharp and their ability to herd us from A-B without is ever feeling them do so is uncanny.

Crooks 1926 is a fantastic night out. And at £28 for a two and half hour show it’s an absolute steal (and it’s great to see immersive produced at an accessible price range). If you have ever been tempted to try immersive theatre but haven’t yet, this is an incredibly accessible production. If – like me – you’re an old hand, this has everything you’re looking for.

I cannot recommend this belter of a show highly enough. Go see it. Do it now.

Title: Illicit Secrets: Bletchley
Style: WW2 Codebreaking drama based on real people
Where: Colab Factory, 74 Long Lane, London SE1 4AU
When: 8.00 pm until 28th August
To Note: Mobility needed to get around the rooms

Rating: 4.5/5

Another World War Win at the Colab Factory.

Illicit Secrets: Bletchley is a very clever drama. Like a predecessor Hidden Figures, it uses immersive theatre to celebrate real heroes from The Second World War – in this case, the code breakers of Bletchley Park. It does this by immersing you in their work and their world.

The drama happens on three levels. Firstly, the code breaking. Every member of the audience is involved in decrypting fiendish cyphers. These are tough. Genuinely challenging and you aren’t spoon fed at all. It took us a significant portion of the evening to get anywhere, but when we did, it was seriously satisfying.

The second is the interpersonal relationships between the staff at Bletchley. Some aspects of these are more known to a modern audience than others. The story of Alan Turing is well known now, and the balance between the need to treat his situation with modern sensitivity and the need to remain true to the drama is deftly handled. Equally important are the other characters who may not be as well known but who all contributed to winning the war.

The final layer is the internal spy game, with Whitehall spying on Bletchley Park to discover what could constitute a security risk. It was through this mechanism that the story is both moved on and resolved.

While Illicit Secrets: Bletchley is run by a different company than Colab Factory’s previous success For King and Country, its fair to say there’s a reasonable amount of crossover. In fact, Director Christopher Styles previously starred in FKAC. This is a team that love and respect WWII drama, who aren’t mawkish by are equally unafraid of sentimentality.

But don’t worry if you’re not a war buff. I’m certainly not. But the drama stands apart from the period and keeps the interest. The key events they refer to are well known enough that you don’t have to be a historian to appreciate them, though I am sure there were all sorts of lovely details thrown in to please those who’d appreciate them.

Illicit Secrets: Bletchley was fun, thought-provoking and challenging. The codebreaking made my brain hurt in a good way. The ending left me moved. The acting was exemplary. It’s not on for long, but if you get a chance – see it.