Ritual – COLAB Tower, London

Writer: Michael Bontatibus

Director: Charlotte Murray

Ritual at COLAB Tower in London Bridge is an eight-hour immersive performance by Witness Immersive. It runs across the afternoon and the evening, and audiences are free to enter and leave at any point. You can stay for 10 minutes or several hours, and tickets are free. It is a generous structure on paper, designed to invite curiosity rather than commitment. In practice, that openness becomes part of the problem.

When attending, very little happens. Charlie MacRae-Tod, as a brooding Orestes, hiding out and waiting for a sign from the gods, has nothing to do but wait. He hangs curtains. He writes letters. He sits silently. There is one extended exchange with another character, delivered largely through BSL and handwritten text, sometimes in Greek, which only a small handful of the already overbooked audience can properly see or follow. With around 40 people spread across two rooms that should comfortably accommodate more, everyone ends up clustering around any hint of action. When something finally does occur, most people miss it.

The result is an experience with too many barriers to entry. Without clear context or signposting, it becomes difficult to know who anyone is, what is being communicated, or why it matters. The story is already abstracted, and this further fragmentation leaves large parts of the audience excluded, not just emotionally, but practically.

The set is heavily decorated, though without much imagination. Objects fill the space, but they rarely generate atmosphere or meaning. It feels busy rather than purposeful, a backdrop to waiting rather than a world with its own internal logic.

The pacing is slow and deliberate, but without stakes or intrigue. Extended silences might be powerful if they were charged with tension, but here they mostly drain momentum. The durational format struggles to accumulate meaning and ends up less than the sum of its parts. 

MacRae-Tod is strongest in stillness. His physical presence has weight, and in silent moments, he holds attention. Unfortunately, whenever he speaks, the performance slips into a dithering, Hugh Grant-esque register (presumably improvised over an already thin script by Michael Bontatibus) that sits awkwardly against the seriousness of the form. It completely contradicts the strength of his physical work and only slows the piece further.

The ambition of Ritual is clear, and the free, flexible model is genuinely admirable. But endurance alone does not create meaning. Without narrative clarity, shared access, or a sense of progression, a ticket to this show feels like being asked to loiter while fragments of a performance unfold just out of reach.

Runs until 22 February 2026