Who are Swamp Motel & What Is Saint Jude?

Swamp Motel are a groundbreaking immersive theatre company created by Clem Garrity and Ollie Jones. They are known to create genre-bending, technologically advanced theatre which is interactive and blends the line between fantasy and reality. 

They are known for past creations such as the online series Isklander, as well as The Drop which came to London in 2021. More on The Drop can be read in our review by clicking here! 

They have teamed up with Charisma, who create stories with advanced Artificial intelligence. They bring digital characters to life using cutting edge creative technology.  With this, they allow audiences to be immersed in stories in a unique way using voice-to-voice, talking to the AI characters directly. 

Saint Jude is an audio immersive experience and is the latest production which takes you through the door of a mysterious government building in Westminster. Once within, you can then engage with the innovative AI technology, that will be truly unique for each individual player unlike anything else you would of experienced before. 

The story follows an organisation called Saint Jude, which is a company that provides comfort, communication and conversation to people in lifelong, irreversible comas. Now they are looking for willing participants to join the programme they have setup and explore the mind of what they call “Sleepers”, to help them recover. 

Our thoughts & Experience

We were kindly invited to the press preview of Saint Jude on Thursday 26th January, just as the week long previews were coming to an end. We found the venue in Westminster, surrounded by other government official buildings which made the story pretty realistic. Upon entry, we had to check in at the reception where your tickets are scanned and you are given a guide book, which explained a little more about your role and what you would be experiencing. The waiting lobby had themed posters linking to the story, so it felt quite official. In the time waiting, we could go through the guidebook and feel even more immersed into the experience. It was certainly a nice touch instead of just sitting around waiting for it to begin. 

Our journey then began as we were instructed to head through…

From here we met with Stefan, who would be taking us around our trial shift with Saint Jude. During his introduction, he told us more on the company, the technology and how it all works. From here, he mentioned we would be connected to a Sleeper, which was a person in a lifelong coma and that we would be able to communicate with them. We had certain restrictions on what we could talk to them on, for the safety of everyone involved.