Do you remember text-only computer games from before the dawn of Civilization? Did you ever have a character die as his house was bulldozed because you forgot to open his eyes? Did you ever decide that when a door demanded that you demonstrate your intelligence, it meant that you should hack the program and rewrite it? Did anyone ever suggest you play Leisure-Suit Larry because the game you were playing didn’t accept ‘F*** THIS’ as an option and Larry would? If you do, this show may be exactly what you need. And even if you haven’t, put away your Xbox because John Robertson’s The Dark Room is more fun than any computer game or escape room ever devised.

Robertson, looking like the MC of Thunderdome, guides volunteers from the audience through a game that begins with a player waking in a dark room. The graphics are primitive and the options limited: very few of them are good, and not all of them are grammatical. Almost inevitably, the only reward for your efforts will be hearing the rest of the audience chant ‘YA DIE! YA DIE! YA DIE! YA DIE! YA DIE!’ as you fail… and then several other people will volunteer, and Robertson will pick the one he suspects will be the most entertaining victim. (If you’ve ever wondered why people would so willingly be made a fool of in public for the chance of a prize worth little to nothing, I suspect you’ve never watched any reality TV.) The secret is Robertson’s infectious manic energy: it’s barely possible not to get caught up in it, and everyone seems to leave the show laughing no matter how, or how often, they’ve been killed. Robertson also does a child-friendly version of the show, which I presume involves less swearing and possibly a smaller chance of being eaten by bears.

I’ve seen The Dark Room before in Perth, at Edinburgh Fringe, and again tonight, and as Beetlejuice says of The Exorcist, it just gets funnier every single time. See it while you can.