You awake to find yourself in a dark room. Escape and you win £1,000 hard cash. But fail and ‘ya die, ya die, ya die’. What do you do? Well, if you’re watching John Robertson's interactive live action video-game-cum-stage-show, you laugh until you cry.

Originally a viral YouTube hit, The Dark Room was converted into a show for the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012 where it was an instant smash. Four hundred shows around the world later, and only two have managed to escape the black depths of despair. On a Saturday night at the Cornerstone in Didcot, a host of eager players flicked the on switch and waited excitedly for the show to boot so they could try. The format will be familiar to anyone who grew up playing text-based adventure games such as Granny’s Garden.

Far removed from the ultra-high definition, super-realistic graphics and gameplay of the modern console, these games relied mainly on the imagination of the player. A brief description of your surroundings was all you had to go off as you plunged yourself into the role-play and tried to tackle the challenges that awaited.

Normally, the biggest obstacle was actually grammar, with any slight deviation from the accepted answer leaving you pulling your hair out as you failed to progress. Thankfully, in The Dark Room this typing terror has been removed to leave players randomly - and sometimes not so randomly - chosen from the audience with a set of actions to choose from. Each option sends you down a different path, either presenting a whole new set of actions or infuriatingly taking you back to square one.

It may sound easy, but The Dark Room has some 600 combinations available according to John, and some scenarios are still unearthed despite hundreds of players’ attempts.

Part of the show’s fun comes from watching fellow audience members fall foul of the devilish dilemmas presented, with some downright hilarious options appearing along each path. But in truth the show’s format is mainly a vehicle for John to expertly rift with the audience and leave them in tears of laughter. It’s definitely not for the easily offended, but like all good comedians, Robertson has the ability to pick up on a throwaway remark here or trait there and run with it, instantly coming up with devastating and downright hilarious putdowns.

And if you’re a real glutton for punishment, The Dark Room is available to play online so you can die over and over again.