This bold interactive promenade production is not a play, more a piece of theatrical installation art. The BT becomes a seedy music hall, The Rueful Morgana (Rue Morgue for short), whose last few performers are all escapees from different Poe stories. The audience are handed masks, and allowed in to witness these characters re-enact their tragedies and descend into madness. The hot opening night enhanced the claustrophobia and oppressive black walls of the small space.

The production is well put together, carefully reconstructing chaos from a large sourcebook of Poe's work. It's got a great soundtrack by turns catchy and sinister. And it has an array of interesting props (tarot cards, roses, a skeleton, a ventriloquist's doll, a microscope, jewellery, perfumes and a ouija board among them), which all have to be indestructible as they're nearly all cast aside, swept off tables or thrown down during the course of the evening.

The cast swap parts from night to night, but the opening night Rowena Wilson (Louise Latham) was a punchy and dramatic dancer in between switching from Burlesque lady to mad bride.  The characters are each provoked in turn by the Mesmerist, played by Alice Young. She was a mischeivous Puck figure, causing havoc and distress wherever she goes. Young did cut a very devilish figure and gave a sense of real menace. (There was some fabulous make up as well, not least some gruesome scarring.)

The difficulty is that without the actors being allowed to interact with each other it was difficult to establish their characters roundly or make the audience feel anything for them, and I felt particularly sorry for the ventriloquist, played by Filip Ferdinand Falk Hartelius. He had a lovely American accent, most suitable for the setting, and a long lean frame which seemed perfect for physical theatre. But he got so few lines that his best speech was made when welcoming audience members into the theatre.

Overall I got the impression that the show was more about atmosphere and experimentation than it was about conveying anything, which is fine as long as that's what you're expecting. So, not recommended if you like to sit back and watch a story unfold linearly in front of your eyes. But I would recommend it to those who find the usual Oxford theatre scene a bit vanilla, anyone who likes a challenge, fans of immersive theatre and of course to Poe afficionados.