Recipe for Relativity | Here + There Productions & Anywhere Festival

Recipe for Relativity by Here + There Productions is a fresh take on the popular escape room concept. Presented in the downstairs of a West End cafe, we solved engaging tactile puzzles with the help of the character of Hadley Erstwhile Vector, a futuristic traveler stuck in our dimension. 

Escape rooms are brilliant games, transforming an ordinary room into an adventure, usually with the goal to unlock a door at the end. The “escape” for this unique Anywhere Festival experience was to assist dimension hopping Hadley to leave our dimension before their DNA broke down from too much inter-dimensional exposure. To help them escape, we were asked to fix their traveling device, a meticulously crafted object that had multiple dials, lights, and doors to fiddle with. This impressive construction, made by show producer Regan Henry, a manual for the travelers device and a small suitcase of miscellaneous clues and puzzle solving objects, were the only items required to complete this challenge, along with helpful hints from the actor. 

Claire Alcock, who played Hadley and also wrote the show, was lively and engaging, maintaining the character of a stressed time traveler throughout the whole performance, even when helping push our group in the right direction to solve the puzzles (it was actually essential to talk to them to gain vital information to complete the puzzles, which was a fun element). I really enjoyed this way of directing the escape room experience in comparison to how help is given in a traditional escape room, and I found Claire to be likable and charming. Props also to her commitment to the performance in a public cafe, where many people in the room were not part of the show at all and were surely left wondering what was going on at the table across from them. 

The game was different enough to feel challenging for those who have done a few escape games before, while the addition of a constant companion with the actor would make it accessible for people who have never done an escape room before. 

Recipe for Relativity is a great evolution of the escape room genre. There was a sweet little tie-in to the Cinnamon & Co venue in the iteration of the game we played, but I’m sure this could easily be adapted to a new space. This game could truly be set up anywhere!