"You awake to find yourself in a dark room..."
Welcome to The Dark Room, John Robertson's long-running (now in its 13th year of touring) comedy show/interactive video game. Over the course of two hours, Robertson leads audience members through The Dark Room, a choose-your-adventure game. The rules of the game are simple - the player has options on a screen to pick from, with the goal of finding their way out of Robertson's dungeon, and they will either win (where you can get £1000 in hard cash) or die. And you can bet that people die and die and die again.
This was my first time in The Dark Room and it is a rollicking, hilarious time to be had. Robertson shapes himself as a sadistic end-of-level boss, amusingly roasting each contender. No one is spared from his wrath - the show opens with Robertson running through, and ripping into, each generation. A thick wedge of meanness gives The Dark Room a gleeful quality. Robertson truly is the villain at the centre of the piece, bedecked in Mad Max/wrestling attire.
If Robertson is the villain, the audience are promoted to the position of heroes. There are rounds played as a whole, others played in pairs, most by a single audience member. The atmosphere is warm and inviting; many watching have clearly seen the show before, chanting back key lines like 'Ya die, Ya die, Ya die'. People around me were giddy to be back in The Dark Room and I found my face hurting from the joy of being a part of this game.
The Dark Room is the kind of production that has built itself out. There are in jokes, tangents, side quests (I loved The Dark Lighthouse) and more. Robertson comes with a rich strand of gaming knowledge and is never too far away from a burn directed at any famed video game.
It is to be noted that as mean as Robertson's stage persona is, he does drop the act at the end of each half, and we find a more friendly comic underneath it all. Robertson poses for selfies during the interval and takes questions at the end that are enlightening and as funny as The Dark Room version of himself.
Journeying through a dungeon has never been as much fun as it is with The Dark Room, and all of its glorious, madcap delights. I left a convert, eager to return to Robertson's lair.
John Robertson will be back in October with his new show John Robertson Plays With His Audience and I, for one, will be eagerly watching.