An Overnight Adventure in Wales Filled with Puzzles and Mysteries (and Cults?!)
With a special discount for Wondercaders!
Last year, the Boss and his dear pal Emily Jillette traveled to Wales to take part in an immersive experience called The Locksmith’s Dream: part escape room, part interactive theatre, part luxury sleepaway camp. The masterminds behind the show are back with a follow-up called The Key of Dreams. Set in the same centuries-old mansion in the Welsh countryside, this experience plops you in the midst of a perplexing, potentially paranormal mystery filled with actors who stay in character 24/7 as you gather clues to solve the riddles of the manor: you must help the elderly owner get to the source of the supernatural trickery that has been happening as of late. (One review calls it “The Traitors meets Ghostbusters.”) Bookings are open until the end of the year…and Wondercade readers get a special discount: upon checkout, enter code STUNNING for 10% off your booking (which includes a lavish 7-course banquet and all other meals). OR, get 20% off late-summer bookings through September with code MADNESS. Madness, indeed! For now, here’s a chat the Boss had with Creative Director Ivan Caric.
Neil Patrick Harris: Ivan, I’m still thinking about how much Emily and I loved your previous show, The Locksmith’s Dream. Although, not surprising that a two-day, fully-immersive, cocktail-filled puzzle hunt in a gorgeous, centuries-old Welsh manor would be anything less than amazing. Which is why I can’t wait to tell readers about your new show, The Key of Dreams. And thank you for offering them discounted tickets! (Here’s that link again!) Tell me, what’s the show about?
Ivan Caric: It’s an overnight experience in a 17th-century historical manor in Wales, and you’re invited by a guy called Wyn Haffenden: a welcoming, bumbling guy in a tweed suit. He’s been having bad dreams over the last couple months, after he inherited the house. Strange things are happening, and you help investigate what’s going on. We’re not an escape room, but we have some escape room elements. And the big thing is you’re able to affect the endings of the characters based on what you do throughout the show.
NPH: Tell me more about these shady and shifty characters.
IC: We’ve got four main characters, who are all finding clues and reading documents alongside you and the other players. You’re also eating dinner with them, spending time with them — and our actors never drop character. So, you might catch one moment where they look exhausted, or cross, or kind of upset. And you can talk to them and see what’s going on and build a relationship.
NPH: So you can become besties. Or not.
IC: Yeah. They might say, “You were rude to me earlier!” and not talk to you. [laughs] But you can build opinions about these people, what sort of person they are, whether the things they do are good or bad…and that may change over the course of the day. Especially at nighttime. And then you can kind of help them…or hinder them. The audience becomes part of the show, and part of the cast.
NPH: Which is the best part of immersive theatre! One of the many best parts, anyway — we’re not big on absolutes at Wondercade. What are some ways the audience becomes part of the show in this case?
IC: Well, some of the characters they meet might be a bit cult-y. And you can join the cult! And investigate what’s going on in the house on that organization’s behalf. One of the characters in these societies might ask you to join, or say, “Yeah, you’re here to investigate for them, but we’re a lot more interesting.” They might seem a bit dodgy, and then suddenly you’re down the rabbit hole and have a mask on doing a ritual in a cellar. And it’s like, how did I get here?! That’s the genuine magic of this show.
NPH: I just hope ol’ Wyn Haffenden cures his insomnia. Maybe melatonin or something would help, idk.
IC: He’s obsessed with all the old traditions of the house. But why is he having trouble sleeping? Well, we adapted local stories and kind of wove them into the experience, like folk stories or horror stories from famous writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Emma James and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The house is crazy. We love this place!
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