one4review | On 07, Aug 2025

Back to the Fringe with its ever growing cult of followers, John Robertson’s The Dark Room is once again delighting and terrorising audiences as they try to navigate through its fiendish maze of multiple choice options to, potentially, finally, find a light switch.

The premise of the show is simple. Robertson has devised a text-based video game and one by one, volunteers from the audience are chosen to try and escape from the titular Dark Room by selecting one of four choices. Many choices lead to death, and only one route leads to completing the actual game. Supposedly, if anyone does manage to complete the game, they will win £1000 but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that this has never actually happened, not when failing is so much fun.

The show is held together and made fantastic, not just by the extremely funny execution and premise, but by the excellent Robertson himself, giving his usual masterclass in crowd work as he runs through the show in a suitably dungeon master accent and dressed like a Mad Max cosplayer. The whole thing is an eclectic mix between Zork, Knightmare, Atmosfear and 90s Choose Your Own Adventure books and if you got any one of those references, chances are you’ll have a wickedly great time with it.

*****

Reviewed by Tom

Gilded Balloon – Patter House

Until 24 Aug