Sage and Jester are the newest company trying to take the immersive theatre world by storm and for their first full-scale production, they’ve taken over a huge former paper warehouse in Deptford, South East London.

The location isn’t exactly in the heart of London’s Theatreland with no train station closer than a fifteen minute walk and overground trains or buses being the main transport links, but maybe that’s the point here. It’s a hidden gem of a venue and the trek to arrive (you even have to walk up a long, overgrown, security-ridden path to get to the warehouse) hints at the secrecy of the location which fits perfectly with the show’s narrative.

As audience members, we play the trustees of the secret that is Storehouse, a fictional organisation introduced in 1983 when the internet began, which holds every single piece of information from the World Wide Web in the form of printed books. However, cracks start to form quite literally as secrets are revealed of the family who invented this initiative and workers start to find ways to fight back. It’s far more confusing than that though at the time when listening to lengthy and wordy scenes making it difficult to take it all in. It didn’t help that I happened to be there on one of the hottest days of the year too. Think less Storehouse and more Greenhouse.

Another reason it’s hard to focus on what’s being said is the sheer epic scale of the scenery. Alice Helps’ production design is simply phenomenal. It honestly has to be seen to be believed but try to imagine a fantastical world of books, ink and library ladders together with an eighties theme and then triple the spectacle you have in mind. Ben Donoghue’s lighting design is worth a mention too and complements Helps’ outstanding work beautifully.

The actors are a strong team, clearly talented in improvisation and interaction, but again the extensive monologues thrown at them make it hard for their performances to shine. I was especially looking forward to hearing the somewhat over-advertised voice performances from Toby Jones and Meera Syal, only to make it through to the end of the show without hearing them once. Maybe I missed them but speaking to other audience members after the performance, they were none the wiser either. A real shame.

The final moment of escaping Storehouse and looking over the structure of the set from above should feel like a wonderful conclusion to the ninety minute piece but it is unfortunately lost and struggles to give off any clear message.

It’s worth seeing for the extraordinarily ambitious set design alone but for an immersive theatre piece, I’d liked to have been more immersed in the story and production as a whole, rather than just the set.

⭐️⭐️⭐️