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That pioneer of experiential moviegoing, Secret Cinema, has a new rabbit to pull out of its hat in these housebound times: Secret Sofa. It’s all the same interactivity, immersion and dress-up, none of the travelling to a once-abandoned wasteland in Haggerston. Better still, there’s ice cream involved.
So how does it work? Well, you sign up to this weekly newsletter and wait for an email to pop into your inbox each Tuesday. It will contain all the information you need to get into the spirit of the movie that’ll be showing on Friday, from costume suggestions to music playlists. There’s also a tie-in with Häagen-Dazs, which means that you’ll be able to order the ice-cream flavour of the week via Amazon Prime Now. Which will be delicious but also oddly annoying, seeing as you’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to order carrots and milk for three weeks now.
All you need to do to join in is download the week’s film – or cue up the DVD you’d cleverly already remembered to own – at 7.30pm (UK time) on Friday and Secret Sofa will do the rest. It kicks off with Wes Anderson’s ace comedy ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ this Friday (April 17) and continues for an additional seven weeks.
Secret Cinema is promising to ‘bring a sense of play to your living room’ and stick closely to the spirit of its big participatory events. ‘We are going to transform your sofa into a time machine,’ promises CEO Max Alexander, ‘a portal and a place of discovery and connection with the outside world. Secret Cinema is the master of surprises, so watch this space for other new and exciting initiatives.’
And if all that sounds like a bit of a faff, you could always try Normal Sofa.
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