A NEW immersive escape room experience has been launched as part of a collaboration with two independent businesses.

Seventh Seal, a traditional barber shop, has teamed up with The Great Big Escape in Dorchester’s Brewery Square to present ‘The Barber of Pope Street’ escape room.

The experience sees participants take the role of Brewery Square’s security officers in a chilling, late night setting. 

Participants will be tasked with identifying the source of an alarm sounding on site, exploring the depths of Seventh Seal to find clues.

Toby Frere, co-owner of Seventh Seal added: “We wanted to make ‘The Barber of Pope Street’ as authentic as possible and match our shop down to a tee so we contributed various props including recycled hair product containers.

“The Great Big Escape has done a fantastic job in developing this new escape room and we’re delighted to have been involved in creating another engaging offering at Brewery Square.”

The Great Big Escape, on Brewery Square, also offered a ‘Hop House Homicide’ experience which involves a murder mystery storyline with its concept paying homage to Brewery Square’s historic location.

The escape room business first opened last year and has seen more than 500 teams attempt to escape.

Bradley Butterworth, co-founder of The Great Big Escape said: “Our escape room concepts centre around assets within our local area, with each room featuring small, recognisable details to create a more realistic and immersive experience.

“Being based at Brewery Square means we’re surrounded by a vast range of businesses which give us creative inspiration for different themes. 

“Seventh Seal’s unique barber and café offering provoked ideas around creating an unusual, mysterious scene as a set up for a series of intriguing challenges – so we were thrilled to team up with them to make our vision come to life.

“Our escape room themes change periodically to offer something different to our customers, and our collaboration with Seventh Seal is the first of many we hope to do with other businesses in the coming months. We can’t wait to work closely with more like-minded businesses and bring more exciting experiences to Dorchester.”