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Punchdrunk are a theatre company who stage “promenade performances”, wherein you wander at will through the action, the actors and the extensive sets. It aims to be a totally immersive experience, and “Masque of the Red Death”, based on a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, is their latest.

In the story the land is being destored by a pestilence know as the Red DEath. A prince locks a thousand people away with him in a castle. All is well for six months, then a masked ball is held, and at the stroke of midnight a cloaked figure appears and kills the prince. The figure is the Red Death, and they are all doomed.

Punchdrunk have taken over the Battersea Arts Centre for this performance. On entry you are given a white Venecian mask to wear throughout the evening. You are also advised not to talk. You then proceed into the venue. At first this can be disorientating. Everything is dimly, spookily lit with candles or smoky shafts of light through trees and windows. Any door you come across should be tried – it may be locked, or else lead into further drama. The onus is on you to explore and experience. It is best to venture out on your own and go wherever you feel.

The venue has been transformed it beyond all recognition. You will find children’s nurseries, doctors surgeries, a misty wood, hospital wards, a caberet theatre (both front and backstage), and much more. The darkness and the depth of the decor make the experience totally immersive – read a note on a wall or pick up a pamphlet and it will be full of scrawled detail. Every item in every room exudes a grubby authenticity.

The mask you wear has a wonderful distancing effect. It anonymises and emboldens you. In a traditional theatre you would not be this close to the action – mere inches in some cases – but here you think nothing of peering directly into an actor’s face, or walking around the action fumbling with props. At times you may become an actor yourself – one woman I saw was told to hold a man against a wall by the neck, and positioned into doing so. Othertimes you may be barged out of the way by a pair of wrestling maniacs.

Compared to Faust, their previous production which was staged in a derelict eight storey building in Wapping, the Red Death feels more compact, less expansive. Poe’s original lacks a strong narrative, and in its stead is a strong atmosphere of impending doom. Where Faust had huge sets covering whole floors of the building, allowing an inclusive mass encounter, the intention here seems to veer towards giving a unique experience to as many people as possible. I was lucky enough to take part in a seance, in a pitch black room. I also heard of others seeing a large banquet which grew steadily more maniacal. One guest near the end was showing his friends his hand, full of muddy paste! This can lead to a mentality of “missing out”, more more often than not you have experienced enough for it to feel a special night, and hearing others’ stories of their routes is just as intriguing as your own.

If there is one complaint it is that some of the story threads here feel a little like dead ends, and not everything is resolved, at least not during my viewing. But given how much fun this is, how very “other” it feels, plus the great cameraderie of the crowd, the baroque drama of everything, this is a minor quibble.

Go along on a Friday or Saturday and you get to hang around in the bar with the actors knocking back beers. You can even dress up for a masqued ball and dance your own fandango.