The Traitors: Live Experience, 60 Short’s Gardens, Covent Garden, WC2H 9AH | 16 August 2026 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by Mary-Ellen Dyson

The Traitors: Live Experience

60 Short’s Gardens, Covent Garden, WC2H 9AH | 16 August 2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by Mary-Ellen Dyson

“Joyous and absorbing.”

I can’t stop thinking about it – The Traitors: Live Experience is joyous and absorbing.

Part of the trend in immersive theatre, The Traitors: Live Experience takes the core elements of the hit TV show and asks the question, “could you play it?”. The Traitors: Live Experience is the ideal way to adapt The Traitors for the theatre – this is a game designed to be played.

When punters arrive, they are seated in the bar with up to thirteen other people – the group that they will be playing with. When the time comes, they are taken down to the locus of the game: the Round Table. At this table, missions are played, Traitors silently select their victims, and “Round Tables” take place, where contestants discuss their suspicions and select players for banishment. Great care has gone into crafting every aspect of this experience. The Traitors: Live Experience has painstakingly condensed the magic of the TV show into two hours.

After elimination, players go to a lounge to watch the game on a screen with fellow eliminated contestants. In the lounge, there are a few minigames to play which affect the outcome of the missions. The atmosphere within the lounge is like watching the TV show on steroids – these are the friends and family of the people around you, and they’re avenging yourdeath. I loved chatting to my fellow contestants about the Traitors’ strategies, the Faithfuls’ capabilities, and contestants’ nail-biting fatal mistakes. When the final Traitor was caught at the very last moment, the eliminated players cried out as one in explosive jubilation. The Traitors: Live Experience makes great fun out of being dead.

Fans and non-fans alike will enjoy The Traitors: Live Experience. It helps to have seen a series of the TV show, to understand how the game works and fully enjoy it when played at a fast pace. That said, one does not have to be a superfan to love this experience. Superfans and casual viewers were equally euphoric when descending on the bar for post-game discussion.

One of the most impressive aspects of The Traitors: Live Experience is that it creates a group experience out of complete strangers. Polite conversation at the start of the experience becomes energetic debriefing by the end. The rapid camaraderie is unlike any experience I’ve had before.

Some may be hesitant about having to do missions, but I can reassure them: the missions are nowhere near as physically demanding as they are in the TV show. There were some patrons with limited mobility within our group, and they all held their own during missions and enjoyed them fully. No mission involves more than walking around the room, and plenty take place seated. My guess would be that a non-ambulatory wheelchair user would have found the manoeuvring to be somewhat effortful, but entirely feasible.

There is an element of luck in an experience like this – some people will stay in the game for longer; some people will get lovely groups to play with, as we did. But the best part about this experience is the agency that you possess. Great storylines develop, entirely of your group’s making – influential theories which turn out to be Traitors’ bluffs, tiebreaks between family members which have everyone on tenterhooks. This agency means that it keeps playing on one’s mind long after it’s finished – I keep replaying my banishment, wondering if there was anything I could have said to save myself. Your experience will not be mine. With a fantastic creative team and a group of total strangers, it will be made by you. That’s what makes The Traitors: Live Experience utterly captivating.

Creatives

Creative Director - Neil Connolly
Associate Director - Georgia Clarke-Day
Production Designer - Christian Ellinas
Lighting Designer - Elliot Griggs
Sound Designer - David Gregory for Clay Productions
Costume Designer - Lucy Calder
Art Direction - Christian Ellinas
Video Systems Designer - Ieuan Watkins-Hyde
Video Content Designer - Josh Bird
Script Writers - Neil Connolly & Georgia Clarke-Day
Resident Director - Georgia Clarke-Day