Deathcell: Magenta was the latest project courtesy of R Space Productions and acts as a prequel to their very successful 2018 run of Deathcell. Sadly we weren’t able to attend the original show, but had heard many good things about it, so our anticipation for their new show was already pretty high.
The venue for Deathcell: Magenta was on Fish Island within easy walking distance of Hackney Wick station in East London. So a little before our allotted screening time we arrived and waited outside before we could enter.
One of the things that we particularly enjoyed about the Deathcell: Magenta experience was the correspondence that we received before the day of the show, including some emails to help with the world building as well as a letter and membership card for the Blockbuster-esque Rewind Rentals. This again really helped with the pre-show immersion.
Sadly this didn’t quite continue during the initial start of the show. We’d brought along our membership card for our exclusive screening at Rewind Rentals, but it wasn’t needed at all. We’d have preferred a bit more in character / in-world immersion for the initial pre-show.
Deathcell: Magenta was billed as a mixture of immersive horror theatre with escape room style puzzles and theatrical segments. First up was the screening itself which was a nicely produced short film that explains a bit more of the backstory of Deathcell and also Magenta the creator of ‘pained conundrums’. Whilst the film was entertaining, it went on a bit too long for our tastes at around 25 minutes of the 60 minute experience.
Obviously things start to go more than a bit sideways after the movie experience and it is here where the puzzle solving and scare elements come into play. Our mixed group had to work our way through a number of rooms solving the puzzles in each room in order to progress. The puzzles weren’t anything overly complicated and useful in-character help was forthcoming in order to keep the flow moving.
We had a lot of fun during this section and would have liked this to go on a bit longer. That said we did feel a little lacking in scares and would have preferred a bit more menace and jeopardy to put us properly on edge during our puzzle solving endeavours. A shade under 60 minutes after we first entered we emerged into the humorously entertaining finale.
As mentioned we definitely had an enjoyable time with Deathcell: Magenta and love the fact that we could enjoy another out of season scare. Unfortunately the slightly jarring connection between the excellent pre-show immersion and the entry into the screening and the lengthy film screening didn’t work for us. Also, whilst there were some really cool pieces of set design, in some of the rooms it felt quite sparse and it was apparent that we weren’t in a fully realised world. What was done for the limited budget though was very nice. We also probably didn’t appreciate any Easter Eggs or call backs to the previous show and they would have gone completely missed.
We hope that R Space are able to put on another run of Deathcell: Magenta for those who might not have been able to get to London for this limited run, and if not we look forward to seeing whatever experiences they come up with next.
