'Plymouth Point' review or 'World Wild Web'

Plymouth Point, Swamp Hotel
Online, 9th June 2020
Written for The Guardian 

At a particularly tense stage of this online detective thriller, I scream fairly loudly and – not my finest hour – aggressively bang on my laptop. Plymouth Point is seriously gripping stuff. It’s best played by a minimum audience of four, which can be made up of friends from other households (Socialising! Yeah!). While a fair chunk of online theatrical content can feel like a pale substitute for the “real thing”, this interactive experience works perfectly online and transforms the internet into your very own sprawling adventure playground. 

Before they founded immersive company Swamp Motel, Ollie Jones and Clem Garrity worked with Punchdrunk and created indie theatre company Kill the Beast. Their work is distinguished by a sharp sense of humour, exquisite eye for detail and general air of mischief. Plymouth Point has been constructed with consummate care and, although the detective story comes laden with some outlandish twists, it always feels convincing. For all the online trickery on display, this is first and foremost a cracking piece of storytelling.

Things start at a low simmer. As we gather on Zoom, an anxious neighbourhood watch member tells us that a young woman, Ivy, is missing. Will we help track her down? We’re given a tiny clue to set us on our way and then left to scrabble around the world wide web for clues, first tentatively and then – as the clock ticks down – with increasing levels of hysteria (almost entirely coming from me).

Most striking is just how cleverly the company use content that’s already out there on the web. Social media sites, Google searches, YouTube and Wikipedia all come into play, almost always in a way that feels organic. Not a single search leaves us empty-handed, although you’ll certainly need a few tech-savvy types on your team – those annoying people who navigate the internet with consummate ease – to get the most out of this experience. With each new unearthed clue, the sense of reality solidifies and, alongside this, a bizarrely potent feeling of responsibility. It really is down to just us to find this woman and solve the mystery before – scream! – it’s too late.