(Full disclosure: I have seen a Work in Progress of this show and have friendships with members of the crew and cast.)

There’s a twist to the return of the VAULT Festival in London, the eight week-long arts festival hosted in the damp and rattling tunnels beneath Waterloo station, this year. Following the loss of “Unit 9,” the halls that have previously hosted the VAULT Festival’s more large scale immersive shows, the immersive theatre and game makers have had to find new locations for this year’s VAULT. This has sent companies making immersive work to perform outside the main venues—which is why we were sent to meet our new boss, The Grim, at her office on a balcony in a Chinese bao restaurant.

The five of us gathered around the table were informed as we awaited our meeting with the boss that we have all recently died but currently exist in “The Grey”: a space between life and nothingness. When filling in our death certificates pre-show, I declared that I myself had died due to “misadventure,” drowning as I plummeted through a rotten pier.

“Maybe they will give you a plaque,” the very perky Concierge (Emily Howarth) who handles the paperwork tells me as she reads my death certificate. I can but hope. (But, sadly, not live in hope!)

Time is the main currency in The Grey and there is a lost soul wandering the streets. Things like lost souls have a nasty habit of gunking up the gears in the running of the Afterlife. So it is our job to find this wayward wanderer and get them back where they belong. Our reward: keeping our names out of The Book. Once your name is in The Book, your time in The Grey is done and it’s off to oblivion. It seems that we cannot escape bureaucracy and paperwork, even in death.

We then travel the streets around Waterloo meeting with our various sources, the Four Horsemen (Alice Corrigan, Amelia Parillon, Alice Merivale and Molly Beth Morossa), who present us with a range of small tasks and games of wit and wagers. We play for information but also to gain more bags of sand, which will give us more time in The Grey. Solve the puzzle and get a clue to the next location and the next rider.

Near the start of the experience, I was given the important job of retaining and trading with the sand, so I felt I was able to get a good amount of interaction in and play time with the other characters. There is a constant sense of impending doom in the show, as we are informed that we are always being monitored and pursued.

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The performers in The Grim are incredibly talented and skilled at rolling with the various challenges thrown at them by the audience and the baffled public, all while enjoying the otherworldly oddness and fun the world of The Grey provides. Black Horse (Alice Merivale), in particular, has to deal with the joys of performing outdoors and the presence of some very keen locals who just want to be included in the show. She also helps pass time during the journey by pointing out interesting local facts, such as that there are no pigeons in The Grey. If we were to see something masquerading as a little grey bird, run! These little asides help add flavor to the world.

Of course, the nature of the show’s outdoor setting makes sound control a difficult thing; we, the audience, have to deal with the Living wanting to know why we are currently yelling numbers at each other in a park. But, unlike some other shows of this sort, the clues for our next meeting are concise and the area we need to cover is relatively small.

While The Grim appears to be all fun and games the show is really asking a series of questions that are sadly prescient in the current political climate. Will we follow orders or do what we think is morally correct, even if it dooms us?

The show did a good job of building a believable reality for us to inhabit. We felt as if we were part of a separate circle of existence, while around us the Living ate and drank throughout the night. This integration with the real-life Waterloo was also the show’s biggest flaw. At one point, the noise from a busy bar nearly drowned out the performer who was trying to explain a more complex game to us during a critical exchange. It’s at moments like these that the loss of “Unit 9” can really be felt.

The Grim was a nicely contained show with a strong structure and performers who did a good job of handling the various outside challenges thrown at them. I look forward to seeing how this adaptable show might develop and change when placed in different locations.

The Grim has concluded its run at VAULT Festival.

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