★★

“offers a fair share of frights”

Eleven years ago, a fire tore through Battersea Arts Centre’s Grand Hall, destroying much of its roof. But what the headlines missed was the discovery of a mysterious sealed room. The time has come to unlock ‘Room 13’.

A low-lit exhibition recounts the fire, but first there’s a waiver to sign – staff can’t guarantee your safety. Enter Room 13 if you dare.

Conceived by multi-award winning immersive theatre director Tom Maller, with a script by Bells Pendergast, ‘Room 13’ has the makings of a haunting Halloween experience but needs further development. The setup is intriguing: a newly discovered room, dark forces and ominous warnings. Yet the world’s logic remains frustratingly unclear: we’re given one rule – not to make a sound – which is immediately undermined by a group activity and rapidly dissolves any tension. The story never quite establishes who we are, why we’re there or what’s driving the characters, making it harder to fully immerse. Once it gets going, the production does deliver plenty of jump scares, but they lack a strong narrative thread and after a while begin to blur together. At its core is a compelling concept, but the horror needs sharper rules and greater suspense to truly land.

Maller’s direction needs to start building tension before audiences ever reach Room 13 – given the short runtime, it’s crucial immersion starts the second we enter the building. Instead, the exhibition feels more functional than foreboding, not helped by its position off a busy corridor. The antechamber promises silence and dread which is immediately undercut by a room buzzing with conversation. The group activity has some inventive touches, particularly the ferrofluid puzzle, but it would be far more effective if it encouraged quiet. As a result, the world never quite settles around you and the illusions don’t always land, sometimes provoking giggles rather than gasps. The scares themselves could go further at times: perhaps the curtains could draw themselves, actors could replace statues, and the sacrificial animal could look a touch more convincing. The ingredients are there, but the experience needs a much stronger atmosphere to truly get under the skin.

Designer Christian Ellinas’ blends fact and fiction, transporting us from the post-fire restoration into an ethereal world of gossamer curtains, ornate lamps and curious artefacts. Matt Farthing’s superb spatial sound design does much of the heavy lifting, filling the space with sinister whispers, pulsing rhythms and well-timed shocks. Max Sharp’s lighting is equally effective, using subtle fades, flickers and flashes to keep audiences on edge. Anna Dixon’s costumes are harder to appreciate in the low light, though our guide’s formal feel and long scarf lends an appealingly Doctor Who-esque air. Meanwhile, games designers Joe Mills and Tristan Rogers bring a real wow factor with their ferrofluid puzzle, even if the activities are a little quick to crack.

Megan Louise Wilson gets proceedings off to an unsettling start, using hushed tones and quiet urgency to plant the seeds of fear, though her role is ultimately too brief. Jeffrey Mundell is particularly effective, shifting from guide to ghoul with striking physicality and a genuinely otherworldly presence. Though again we see little of Mundell once the lights go out.

While it offers a fair share of frights, ‘Room 13’ needs a much stronger grip on its own mythology to become truly horrifying.

THE PLAY’S THE THING

White Bear Theatre

★★★

“very clever, self-aware and thought provoking”

As the title suggests, this is a play about a play— a pub theatre performance— that we never see. Through three scenes, different characters respond to this play in different ways, so that we’re led to think about the nature of theatre itself. How can theatre (specifically pub theatre) convey convincing truth? How can it be misunderstood? How does communicating through theatre differ from how we communicate in real life?

But despite the big questions it raises, The Play’s The Thing never feels too high brow or overly intellectual. Thought-provoking topics arise naturally from funny and moving conversations between the characters. And clever dramatic irony prompts us to query what we’re seeing. The dialogue reminds us throughout that we’re watching pub theatre about pub theatre. Even the setting is just a bare space with some pub furniture, to drive home the point.

The Play’s The Thing is the work of three writer / directors. But this isn’t a case of too many cooks. Far from it. The interplay of their different perspectives creates a rich and coherent whole.

The first scene, written and directed by Maya Yousif, is a rehearsal for the play. The director tries to conjure a convincing performance out of an actor, and uses increasingly extreme tactics to get what he wants. The writing is naturalistic, casual and funny, getting darker and more intense as the emotions heighten. Andrew Friedman as the director is excellent. His delivery is spontaneous and casual, and he makes the character likeable and trustworthy. At first. But there’s an edginess that becomes more and more creepy as the scene progresses. Rachel Kitts has the challenge of playing an actor who is good but not brilliant, and cleverly shows her trying over and again to improve.

The second scene, written and directed by Rachel Kitts, is set after the pub theatre performance. We meet the writer of the work, and her friends tell her what they thought of it. It’s a scene about communication. The lies friends tell each other, the truths they omit, and how assumptions can be built on misunderstanding. Again, the writing is very naturalistic and humorous, and the characters are vividly drawn. Our sympathies shift between them as the scene progresses. Francesca D’Souza as the writer gives a convincing, nuanced performance— heartfelt, hurt and self-absorbed. Jessica Wendy Murdoch as her frenemy Emma is bold, forthright and prickly. Anthony Nyro as Ben, caught in the middle of the feud, portrays warmth and generosity, which hides a coldness beneath.

These two scenes suggest that truth can be expressed in moments of breakdown, tears and revelation. For these people, trite language and pleasantries must give way to upsetting confessions of inner turmoil. But the final scene, written and directed by Jessica Wendy Murdoch, shows that this sort of cathartic outpouring is really hard to do— absurd, even.

The last scene gives us two audience members who watched the play. They sit in the pub talking after the show. They aren’t actors or creatives, like everyone we’ve met so far. And yet this is the most theatrical scene of the three— heightened and slightly unreal. It has the air of a Victoria Wood sketch, with fast, mannered language and exaggerated characterisation. It’s a comedy about two middle class people who can’t communicate with each other about their own lives, let alone the meaning of the show they’ve just watched. Their attempts to be earnest and explicit are so bound up with what they can’t say— what they don’t know how to say— that the result is unintelligible.

Jacob Freda gives a sympathetic and tender performance as a crestfallen, self-absorbed husband who struggles to understand his relationship— because he doesn’t understand himself. Ella Blackburn as his wife is witty, electric, cutting and vulnerable. The character is always on the attack, and Blackburn makes her varied and fascinating.

The Play’s The Thing is very clever, self-aware and thought provoking. The performances throughout are impressive. So it’s definitely one to go and see, I highly recommend it. But in the end I came away feeling like those two characters in the final scene— not entirely understanding what it was really about. Writing this review has been an exercise in trying to answer that question. And I guess that’s the whole point the production is trying to make. But I didn’t find it as satisfying as I would have liked. Perhaps it’s the shift in tone of the final scene. The emotion and sincerity of the first two give way to artifice and performance (very well and deliberately done, mind you). This emphasises the meta theatre of the piece, and makes the whole thing feel like a stimulating intellectual exercise about art, rather than the exploration of human communication it seemed to be at first.

I expect everyone who goes to see it will come away with their own interpretation, so (like those two final characters again), be sure to schedule plenty of time to debrief in the pub afterwards.

Tag Archives: theatrereviews

ROOM 13

★★

Battersea Arts Centre

ROOM 13

Battersea Arts Centre

★★

“offers a fair share of frights”

ROOM 13

Battersea Arts Centre

Reviewed on 21st October 2026

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Harry Elletson

ROOM 13

ROOM 13

ROOM 13

ROOM 13

THE PLAY’S THE THING

★★★

White Bear Theatre

THE PLAY’S THE THING

White Bear Theatre

★★★

“very clever, self-aware and thought provoking”