All Falls Down (Review)

I’m blindfolded, in a room of strangers, we are told that we have been in a plane crash and we are all trying to survive and get back to civilisation. Judging by the fact that I’m privately praying that there isn’t some sort of mysterious lifeform that’s going to hunt us down and pick us off one by one, I’m obviously immediately pretty invested.

The way the show worked was that we the audience took on characters of old uni friends and worked together and with the story narrator to make decisions about what to do. We were allowed to do anything but had to negotiate and agree between ourselves. There wasn’t dice to decide on the success of our actions but instead another very clever, slightly (but not too) performative randomising mechanic that really added to the stress. I won’t tell you what the mechanic was because it’s a really fun reveal.

It was really interesting to suddenly be thrown together with completely new people and have to fight for our lives together. Politeness soon goes out the window and you find yourself exasperatedly yelling “no Daphne, it’s going to get dark soon, we don’t need an axe, stop trying to make an axe!”

The genius of All Falls Down may be that it’s introduced the whole audience to the abosolute joy of Dungeons and Dragons-style games or LARPs (live action roleplay) within a 45 minute, compelling and tightly told story without actually ever using those words. For those, like my friends who were with me, who are less au fait with the genre I can see it being a complete gateway drug.

Also, yes they do play the song *chef’s kiss*.

Nottingham-based production company Chronic Insanity is now hosting 12 shows in 12 months both on and offline. Based on All Falls Down, I would really recommend you check them out.

Back in the room the story progressed and dear reader, we survived! At what terrible, terrible cost, we swore we wouldn’t say.

All Falls Down was playing at CRYPT in Bethnal Green, tickets were £6.50. You can find details of Chronic Insanity’s 12 in 12 project here.