Comedy review: The Dark Room with John Robertson

You awake to find yourself in a Dark Room. You have four options:

1) Try to find the light switch

2) Go North

3) Weep

4) Wonder how you found yourself participating in a live-action-video game on a Tuesday night. Then knock back your free mojito and throw yourself head-first into the game.

Isn’t life wonderful? There really is something for everyone when you live in London. When a friend invited me to my favourite cocktail chain to see comedian John Robertson’s live-action-video game The Dark Room on Tuesday, and that the £10 ticket fee included a free mojito, I thought ‘ooh, this sounds different’.

And I wasn’t disappointed. Those of you who remember text-based-adventure-games from the 80’s and 90’s will be all over this like a rash. Remember those DOS-based games where you, the player, were faced with a decision at every ‘level’? Those really basic games where a typo could ruin your move and a cruel logic ruled the world? I’m thinking Hugo’s House of Horrors, Leisure Suit Larry and the like. The games were absolutely maddening, sending you round and round in circles, ‘stuck’ at certain points because of a flaw in your decision 3 levels back. Or whatever, I don’t care, I’m definitely not getting wound up by flashbacks of early-morning-Monkey-Island-induced-rage as a tween.

Well imagine that same set-up. In real life. In a bar. Sitting on a bar stool. Battling against other ‘players’ for creepy prizes specially chosen by your host for the evening, comedian John Robertson.

Robertson’s show takes place in, well, a Dark Room. He dims the lights and roars instructions, abuse and flattery at his ‘players’ as we take it in turns to try, and fail miserably, to beat the game. The aim of the show is to get out of the room, step by step. And I’ll be damned if we could even find the light switch. We gave it a really good crack and Robertson is an amazing games-master. He psychoanalysed and belittled each player’s decisions, with just the right balance of contempt and admiration at how appallingly bad we were.

Apparently only a handful of people have beaten the game in the time Robertson’s been running this show. I can see why. It’s a challenge worth trying though, and I’d happily play again.

WANT TO PLAY TOO? You’re in luck! John Robertson will be performing The Dark Room at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He’ll also be performing it twice a week in June at Be At One’s Wimpole St and Smithfield branches.

How to: have a cheese-only dinner in London

I like to eat. I like to eat cheese. I like to eat lots of cheese. And sometimes, that’s all I want for dinner. You got a problem with that? Sorry, I get a bit crazy sometimes: “J’adore le fromage!”
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So when my boyfriend and I wanted to treat ourselves to a different kind of date night, I emailed Vivat Bacchus in London Bridge with a proposition. I’d heard about their famous ‘cheese room experience’ but I feared it was more of an ‘after-dinner’ or ‘pre-dinner’ kinda thing: or even worse, that they might let us select some cheeses to take away but that would mean WAITING TIL WE GOT HOME TO EAT ALL OF THE CHEESE. Outrageous.

Clearly I needed to clear a few things up before we ventured there, because we didn’t want dinner. We just wanted glorious, stinky cheese.

Thankfully, Vivat Bacchus weren’t fazed by this request at all and we scored a ‘dinner’ reservation for 7.30pm that night. On arrival we were seated in the main restaurant, and ordered a glass each of lovely pinot noir and port to sip on while we waited for the cheese room to become available (it’s in hot demand – only a few of you can go in at once with the special cheese expert).

INSIDE THE CHEESE ROOM:

  • It stinks to high heaven
  • It’s glorious
  • It’s a bit chilly but you’re so busy drooling you won’t notice
  • The cheese expert will ask what you like and give you teeny tiny samples to help you decide which cheeses you’d like on your custom platter. All of them are Good.
  • Each cheese portion costs roughly £5, so we asked for a £25 platter of 5 varieties: a stilton, a stinky, vacherin-like soft cheese, a fruity, wine-infused pecorino, a chevre infused with ash, and a soft, herby, spreadable cheese. I can’t recall the names of any of our cheeses but it was a hella good combination

Once you’ve made your selection, you go back to your table and wait patiently while they build a beautiful, customised platter of nuts, fruit, dips, honeys, bread, crackers and all sorts of goodness carefully selected to enhance the flavours of the cheeses you chose.

And you will nom til your heart’s content.

Successful date night, tick!