Interview: Steph Ricketts on DEATHCELL: Magenta

Photo: R Space Productions

Immersive Rumours: Hi Steph. Thanks for sitting down with us today. Do you mind introducing yourself and telling us a bit about R Space Productions?

Steph Ricketts: Yes, I’m Steph and I'm the Managing Director and Founder of R Space Productions. Back when we started R Space in 2018, we just wanted to create a space for people to come and share things they we were working on, make things together and share their skill sets. I had a project name called ‘The Space’ for a while in my head. It’s grown loads in the last couple of years, but when we started, Staines (which was the main hub for most of us) didn’t have a lot of arts or creative areas outside of places we worked at the time, such as Thorpe Park. We'd wait every year for the Halloween season to come along, but we'd get the itch for it around February time, so it was about asking, 'What if we did it all year round? What if we got to do this full-time because we're the one’s creating it?’

The goal of doing these shows [with R Space] has always been to grow people's skill sets and create a space for people to come and be in the industry while learning from us at the same time

IR: We're speaking today because DEATHCELL: Magenta is opening later this month, but I'd love to talk about the previous DEATHCELL show that took place back in 2018. How did the idea for that original show come about?

Steph: I’d had the idea of creating a prison-themed experience for a while. I'd become weirdly fascinated with prisons, so every time I went away on holiday or travelling, I’d go see a prison to learn about history and culture. When I went to San Francisco, I went to see Alcotraz. Add in my love for graphic novels, comics, and anime, and that’s where the story started - I wanted to tell a story about a prison that wasn’t typical and more fictional.

I had snippets of what the story could be at the time, but it wasn’t cohesive. I wrote a 30-page document explaining what DEATHCELL is and what it was like to be in there. There was lore and different paths characters were going to take that would impact their future. People hear me say this all the time, but I’m such a fan of the film Fight Club. What I love about that story is that things can be in front of you the whole time, and you don’t realise. It’s the same with the SAW franchise. As a player in Jigsaw’s games, if you had just listened to the rules without overthinking it, you could have walked out alive. I was heavily inspired by that.

IR: For those who didn't attend the 2018 show, can you tell us a bit about what that experience involved?

Steph: The best way to describe the show is that it was an introduction or pilot into this world. It showed guests what a day is like inside this prison through the eyes of one character branded ‘Yellow.’ We don’t know their real name because when you go into DEATHCELL, you’re branded with a colour, and your identity is removed from you.

Within the world of DEATHCELL, individuals either handed themselves in or were forcibly taken in by masked henchmen known as ‘The Flys.’ This choice determined their journey. Those who resisted faced a harsher induction, such as electrocution, while those who surrendered were taken to the shower room for waterboarding. (Which is still rough!) So at the start, guests were split and experienced one of these paths as they entered. We had actors who were really happy to invest in those scenes and went for it. People came out saying that the waterboarding scene was one of the hardest to watch.

After you’d been inducted (as guests) you would all witness a fight between two of the inmates in DEATHCELL named ‘players’. These characters weren't just banged up in a cell somewhere, they were fighting for their lives and earning coins, or credits as we call them, to keep themselves alive. We had stooges planted in the audience, who would get picked out to be part of this fight. We wanted to make the audience feel like they were living and breathing this world, and it could be them who gets picked out next, injecting fear into people.

Audiences didn’t think they were part of it, but members of the team were planted as stooges but just in their normal clothes. Before you know it, they’re being beaten up and then on the floor. After that, they were dragged into their cells, which is where the escape room elements of the show came in, and people had to play different games to earn credits. Once you had these credits, they'd get to use them in a vending machine, which sounds completely random, but it just makes sense in this world.

After that, they were dragged into their cells, which is where the escape room elements of the show came in, and people had to play different games to earn credits. Once you had these credits, they'd get to use them on a vending machine, which sounds completely random, but the items inside it - from weapons to packets of Magic Stars, USBs with data on them - they’d all help you in various ways.

Without revealing too much, the most unexpected items often held the greatest value in escaping DEATHCELL. Some guests would casually snack on their picked bag of Magic Stars chocolate, unaware that their choice could impact their gameplay. Eventually, inside the Warden’s office, guests discovered the Warden’s connection to Yellow, unraveling more of their relationship before the experience ended in a chaotic chase sequence.

It's been really fun going back and looking at that show, now knowing that we're going back to the very beginning of the story, with a world that has expanded massively beyond what this original did.

DEATHCELL (2018) Photos: R Space Productions

IR: That original show also set up the world of DEATHCELL and explained why those prisons exist right?

Steph: Yeah. The reason these penitentiaries exist in this universe is to bring harmony to people. Imagine a world where there's lots of unrest, lots of divided communities. Within this world, a system is brought in called the ‘Harmony Act’ to ensure that people are behaving themselves and if someone upsets you, or you upset someone, you or them can nominate each other to be picked up and taken to these penitentiaries to be conditioned into behaving better within society. As time went on, they became more and more corrupt, and this one in particular became the most corrupt and is so run down that it isn't part of that system anymore. The Warden became obsessed with playing with the prisoners that came in, and therefore, it's branded as DEATHCELL.

IR: I can't recall many other shows from around that time that combined immersive theatre, scare attractions and escape rooms into one experience. Would you describe the original DEATHCELL as unique for its time?

Steph: I think it was bold. I can't say for sure we were the first to do it, but as far as I’m aware, we were one of the first to merge those three elements - immersive storytelling escape room experience and run-out scare attraction - and we've just built on it since then.

Escape rooms were big at that point, I remember them coming out around 2015, especially horror scare rooms, and there were a lot of escape room elements starting to be experimented with in the scare world, but I feel like we were just really bold at mashing it all together and saying, ‘This could work. We’re just going to go for it.’ Now, I can't see us ever not doing that.

It's great to see how quickly the horror and scare industry has expanded in the last six years. Back when I started scare acting 15 years ago, it was all very linear, on-shoulders experiences. I can't speak for what went on in America or in Europe, but definitely within the UK. Nowadays, people want a story; people want to be immersed as soon as they go in and want to feel like they're living and breathing it.

Video: R Space Productions

IR: Are there any stand-out experiences that you remember combining at least two of those three elements?

Steph: Back in 2015, I went to see a show called Generation of Z: Apocalypse; it was by a company from New Zealand. They’d done the Edinburgh Fringe with the show, and I think it was in Mile End when it was London, but that was the first show I went to that had immersive scares, and it broke the rule book to what I knew it to be. It inspired me to want to create theatre like that.

I'd worked in scare attractions and was a bit desensitised, but I went into that show, and I was running through underground corridors away from zombies. Obviously, I’m a scare actor, so I know it's not real, but I was running away from it, and I really believed I was in that world for an hour and a half. You had to help someone make it to the operating theatre, distract a zombie, and rescue people. It just opened my eyes to the idea that scare could be so much more. That was a show that really inspired me, and it was one of the first ones I'd seen or experienced something outside of the usual linear attractions that I'd been so used to seeing and performing in.

Photo: R Space Productions

People want a story; people want to be immersed as soon as they go in and want to feel like they're living and breathing it.

IR: DEATHCELL: Magenta, the prequel, is a couple of weeks away from opening, but at one point, you'd planned on opening a sequel to that original 2018 show, right?

Steph: Yeah. Back in 2020, we were supposed to do, as we now call it DEATHCELL 2 as a project name. We were looking at a venue at the time, and then obviously COVID came about. We were maybe one or two weeks away from releasing tickets. We're very lucky that we didn't because obviously, the pandemic happened, and we were just about to sign onto a venue. We spent lockdown rewriting that experience. We spent hours on Zoom with various members of the team, just workshopping it, rewriting it, and Magenta soon had more of a part to play in that story. However, the world hasn't seen DEATHCELL 2 yet…and it’s still in the works.

IR: Can you tell us a bit about the character of Magenta and how she fits into the wider DEATHCELL world?

Steph: When we originally did the pilot, Magenta wasn't in that document or the concept I'd written. However, when we went to add in the escape room elements of the 2018 show, we were questioning, “Why are the games there? Who's been making them?” We came up with the idea of a character called Magenta. We didn't know what she looked like back then; we didn't know what her part in DEATHCELL was apart from that she's the person who creates these games.

We didn't know where she necessarily sat in the story, but it gave us enough scope to go ‘Okay, she's the mastermind behind the games’. It gave us a concept to work with to make sure that the games and the theming in those rooms made sense, but it wasn't really communicated to the guests. From an audience point of view, you wouldn't know Magenta existed. Since 2020, we've developed Magenta further, and when we started to talk about this experience, we went ‘Well, if this is a prequel, why don't we tell the story of Magenta and DEATHCELL becoming DEATHCELL?'

Photo: R Space Productions

Everything needs to have a purpose, so we wouldn't put a jump scare in if there was no need to put a jump scare in.

IR: How does your approach to creating these experiences change depending on the length? The 2018 show was 30 minutes, a typical Fright Nights experience is under 10 minutes, but DEATHCELL: Magenta is a full hour-long experience.

Steph: When it comes to a lot of scare attractions I’ve worked in at Halloween events such as Fright Nights, you are in there for about 7 to 10 minutes, sometimes quicker depending on if you run out! You only have that limited time to tell an entire story. The theming, the scripts, the character work, the type of scares you have… they need to be snappy because if people don't get the story in those 7 minutes, they potentially come out saying ‘I don't know what I just saw’. You have to be very self-explanatory or utilise things like your marketing, queue lines and your pre-show characters to really tell that story.

It’s got to pack a punch as you don't have time to delve into a backstory or characters. Equally, some people don’t necessarily want to hear a story, they just want to be scared, right? These attractions always require the same amount of background work, but guests might not get to see all of that. The types of performance you do is going to be different in fast-paced attractions because someone is going to be in a room for a couple of seconds, and then they're going to be into the next one. How you deliver that performance is very different from how we've got to do it in Magenta.

We have the luxury of delving deeper into a story and deeper into the characters. In the world where you’ve got 60 minutes, you have more time to tell a story and delve into emotions a lot more, however, guests are going to be in the space for longer so you’ve got to add more details in to make sure that they aren’t looking around and noticing all the gaps in your experience.

IR: Do you feel like you need to pack in loads of scares to match people's expectations if they're used to a Fright Nights style experience?

Steph: We still have elements for people needing that scare factor. At the end of the day, that’s where we all started. Without saying too much, there are bits in the show that have that, but all of it is with purpose. I feel like everything needs to have a purpose, so we wouldn't put a jump scare in if there was no need to put a jump scare in. We’re quite good at having honest debates about that - does this character really need to be in there, and what does the guest take from it?

For us, it’s all about the story, the world building and being immersed as soon as you go in, forgetting that you're in Hackney Wick and have come to watch a show. People are booking because they want to be immersed in the story.

Photo: R Space Productions

IR: You mentioned earlier that the 2018 DEATHCELL experience had multiple paths for people to go down. Is that the case with this new experience?

Steph: This one is more guided. Guests will naturally have their own say in how their room experience goes because of the puzzles they are doing and how they go about them. But for this experience, the end goal is always the same because we want to lead people into the next chapter, which is DEATHCELL 2. With Magenta, we want guests to come along for the journey and not have different outcomes at this point because it’ll confuse the story later on. Your end goal is always the same, but your experience in each room and how various characters or things around you will react will depend on what you do. 

DEATHCELL 2 will definitely have elements of multi-route. The guests will decide how the show is going to end without knowing it, and then we'll have, in theory, a couple of minutes to switch that on and deliver one of 3 or 4 different endings.

Photo: R Space Productions

IR: What were your earliest experiences with scare attractions, and how did you find yourself working in that world?

Steph: I'm a big believer in fate. You might not understand it at the time, but three years later, you'll look back and understand why. In 2010, I finished studying Performing Arts at Bath Spa University. I was the only third year on my course who didn't get picked for a show - all of them had been picked to be main leads in West Side Story, at The Minack Theatre in Cornwall, and I was devastated. At that point, you feel like you've failed, right? You're like, ‘I'm the only person who's not been picked. What's wrong with me?’ So I felt quite defeated.

I remember sitting in this empty house in Bath, and I said to myself, ‘I'm just going to try and make it, whatever make it means’. My family lived near Chessington World of Adventures, so I looked on the Merlin website, and they were doing scare auditions for Scream in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds in London. I thought, ‘Oh, that's the dungeon thing I went to last year and quickly ran up the stairs from’. I was such a wuss back in the day, I'd been to the London Dungeons once before and screamed all the way round.

Maybe a week later, I picked up The Stage newspaper, opened it up, and there was the same advert for [Madame Tussaud’s] Scream in there. I thought it was fate. The auditions were in Old Street, so I went to it and then didn't think I was going to get it. I finished the audition, waiting for the call out, and they called me back for the following day for what they call Scare School. I remember leaving thinking, ‘Oh, I actually did something; they want to see me’. I went through two or three days of Scare School, which is basically learning how to be a scare performer. Testing your agility, physical endurance, character work, how you can apply physical theatre to what you're doing, and I'm quite a physical performer - which actually shows in Magenta - you can see in her in her physicality and the way she moves around the space, she's quite creaturesque, or less human than others.

I was offered the job to be a scare performer for four months, and I just found my thing. I was suddenly with people who were on the same wavelength as me; I was around so many creative people of different ages. I ended up being extended, and then as more scare actors came in, they’d start talking about other events such as Fright Nights at Thorpe Park and how they go and do it every year. The following year, I auditioned, and I was cast in The Asylum, which was one of their best-loved scare attractions.

Over the next couple of years, I was a Show Captain at Thorpe Park for Fright Nights, so I got to look after the performers every Halloween, and it's just gone on from there. I’ve worked on attractions like Saw Alive and Cabin In The Woods, and I eventually became a Team Leader of Entertainment at Thorpe Park, which is where I met a lot of the R Space members.

In 2019 as Entertainments Experience Manager, I got to write experiences like Trailers for Fright Nights, and got to work on other experiences such as Derren Brown’s Ghost Train and work globally on the Tussauds brand in 2022 and 2023. More recently, I became a Project Manager for large-scale events such as Fright Nights, Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest, and working with loads of different stakeholders in the industry.

IR: Looking back on your career so far, R Space has been a constant for nearly half of it. I guess R Space wouldn't exist without you being in that world..

Steph: Yeah. I've gone from being an actor who fell into doing scare acting for four months to this becoming my entire life, and R Space has been a thread through that for the last seven years, but the jobs that I've done have 100% helped me to become the person I am in R Space.

I think R Space has also allowed me to grow in other areas of work because I've been out there in the eld with less protection and structure, so I’ve had to go and the answers myself. I feel like I’ve been out and earned my stripes to make me a great all-rounder, but I still have lots to learn and I still enjoy dipping back into scare acting ever so often. At Fright Nights, I always try to go back in and do some scaring in the new attractions.

As the industry grows and grows, I think there's more weight on the performers now. They've got seven minutes to get this whole story across, whereas beforehand, and not to discredit it, you could focus more on jump scares, and people would be scared and run out. That still works, but now people want a story; people want elaborate costumes. The stakes are higher now when you're scare performing because people expect more. 

Photo: R Space Productions

IR: You're set to be playing the titular Magenta in the upcoming show. What has it been like stepping into Magenta's shoes? It's quite a different kind of role from what you've typically done in scare attractions.

Steph: Yeah. I haven't performed outside of scare performing for a really, really long time. I'd say that out of the entire project, that's the bit that scares me the most. All the bits that we need to sort in the next couple weeks, not so much. The performing aspect makes me go ‘Oh God, I haven't done this for a really long time.' I felt a bit self-conscious about doing it, but that's because the type of performance I've done recently has been very physical without any dialogue.

When we were shaping this character on set, the team were amazing. Jimm, our Head of Creative and Production, has been our main lead in terms of the short film elements. He and the other performers around me really helped me feel at ease more when shooting. When we shot [the short film content] in August, that was probably one of the highlights of my year. I hadn't performed in a really long time, but I came away feeling like I'd challenged myself. I'm always thinking about how to play her or how to be her, but it's been a journey. I'm a great physical performer when it comes to scare acting, but Magenta isn't scare just acting. She's telling the story.

IR: Finally, what do you hope people will take away from the experience?

Steph: What I am most excited about is for people to be immersed as soon as they get there, see how big the story is, how much we have thought about everything, and how much work has gone into delivering it. We could have easily just done a short film, we could have just done an escape room, we could have just done a piece of theatre, but we decided to bash them all together. I want people to come away with it stuck in their minds. Either because of the story or how we’ve delivered the experience.

Review: DEATHCELL: Magenta by R Space Productions

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DEATHCELL: Magenta will run from 21st February to 1st March 2025 at a secret location in Hackney Wick. Tickets are on sale now, starting from £30.00. For more info and to book, visit deathcell.co.uk

A massive thank you to Steph and Liam from R Space for taking the time to sit down with us for this interview.