It’s been years since there was anything secret about Secret Cinema. The immersive entertainment franchise that began life as cool screenings of mystery films in mystery locations has long been too big a deal – and required too big an audience – to leave things to chance. But massive success has left it in danger of looking artistically adrift, locked in a competition with itself to stage ever more lavish extravaganzas based around ever more obvious films.
Its last London show, 2022’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Live Immersive Experience, awkwardly grafted together a lavish immersive theatre experience with its own self-contained plot and a screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. The fact you could buy a ticket that didn’t include the film screening felt indicative of where Secret Cinema had found itself.
If the latest doesn’t exactly take things back to basics, then it does at least put the classic 1978 film musical at the heart of the evening: you are going to watch Grease. In fact you’re arguably going to watch Grease twice. In Secret Cinema’s Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical, the original film is shown on large screens that are dotted around the cavernous new Battersea Park venue Evolution, which has been lavishly tricked out to serve as Rydale High, aka the school Grease is set in. But then there are live actors who pop up to take over singing and often talking duties in key scenes, with the film continuing to silently play on the screens. Early on I failed to clock this and wondered why the sound had been allowed to get out of sync with the film, until I realised a distant live actor picked out by a spotlight was now saying the school principal’s lines.
This is all... fine. The live band is a nice touch. It’s a really handsome immersive set from Gareth Fry. Inevitably it is a show where you’re encouraged to buy drinks, but you can do this without losing sight of a screen. I’m ashamed to say I spent a fair chunk of the night sat down watching events unfurl from the cushy drive-in VIP area, but joined in with the main standing throng later. It was good natured and lively, geed along by the well-drilled actors.
Formally speaking, however, I never felt the screen/live musical hybrid made much sense. The live actors couldn’t compete with John Travolta et al in terms of presence, and I went through the entire experience only vaguely aware of what any of them looked like. These performers are a pleasant enough background decoration but they’re not in any way the main event. And the fact the live setpieces pop up in different bits of the arena gives the night a stoppy-starty feel - there’s always something to watch somewhere, but it lacks momentum.
Honestly, I think it would have worked better if they’d ditched the actors (but kept the band and dancers), dropped the price by a tenner (or more), and simply made it a deluxe screening of the film. Alternatively ditch the whole ‘cinema’ thing (they already did it to ‘secret’!) and make it a full-on immersive musical that lives or dies on the live performances. Instead what we have is a perfectly fine night of entertainment that is nonetheless a needlessly extra hybrid of two things
I’m aware there is some discontent from formerly loyal Secret Cinema fans who feel that Grease – which the company also staged in Birmingham two years ago – is a lowest-common-denominator choice for a company that once courted cinephiles. But if you like the film Grease and dressing up as if you were in the film Grease (and can look at the ticket prices without swooning) you’ll surely have a good time, and even better if you’re up for springing for a few cocktails and the funfair (there’s a funfair! I can recommend the ferris wheel).
This is the start of a projected three-summer Secret Cinema stint at Evolution, and while I fear the venue is simply too big for the company to return to its arthouse roots, there’s enough love put into its take on Grease to suggest that whatever its missteps, the next couple of summers could easily yield shows that live up to the best of Secret Cinema’s blockbuster era.
