ImmerseLDN

First announced aeons ago and presumably costing a bob or two to create, this Elvis Presley-based immersive show is a slick affair, heartfelt in its admiration for The King. It’s by Layered Reality, who have had notable immersive successes with the ongoing adaptation of The War of the Worlds and the Tower of London-based The Gunpowder Plot. It’s also somewhat structurally eccentric, comes with a difficult-to-defend ticket price, and – when I visited anyway – clearly suffered from its audience not being crystal clear about what it involved from the off. The hook is Elvis’s legendary 1968 comeback TV special, wherein the man who changed music forever in the ‘50s successfully blew off the schmaltzy MOR cobwebs that had engulfed his ‘60s career and showed the world that old fire again. What does an Elvis superfan make of the King’s new London immersive experience? But there’s quite a bit of other stuff before that. For the first half it’s essentially straight up theatre. We’re cast as audience members for the comeback special, who have been rounded up at the last minute after Elvis’s infamous manager Tom Parker failed to distribute any tickets himself (this really happened). A nervous Elvis hasn’t played live in seven years and is refusing to leave his dressing room (this also happened). And Elvis’s BFF from childhood Sam Bell has randomly turned up and offered to help talk his old pal out of his room.  This did not happen, although Bell was a real figure. But his arrival...

FAME*FACTORY is a one-hour, 11-scene show devised by Done + Dusted, the production team behind the Academy Awards, the Emmys and 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony. It’s designed to replicate the expeirence of being a celebrity – private jets, press conferences – without actually increasing your wealth in any way. To be honest it sounds a bit like You Me Bum Bum Train but only the bits where you’re a famous person. Will it really replicate the sense of being a rich guy when the point is surely that it’s not press conferences that make you rich but rather being rich? Or is it all a massive recipe for imposter syndrome? We’ll soon find out!

It seems fairly apparent that a relatively large number of people have watched Netflix’s South Korean gameshow satire Squid Game and thought ‘I'd love to play that’. Presumably some of these people are simply of the belief that they would win while everyone else died. The majority, one would hope, take the view that it would be fun but you’d want to eliminate the ‘almost everyone dies’ aspect. Inevitably the second party is catered for better than the first – London has already had a VR Squid Game, and now here’s an official immersive experience.  Taking in five games in 60 minutes – so rather breezier than the show – Squid Game: The Experience will feature non-lethal recreations of iconic challenges from the show, including the glass bridge, marbles, and – of course – Red Light, Green Light (featuring that horrifying doll thing).  Hopefully it’ll all be a good laugh and the lack of actual danger won’t leave you feeling like you’re just playing some random children’s games. On that note, kids of all ages are welcome to participate, though depending on how good a parent you are they may be bewildered as to the exact context.

From the people who brought you the immersive Tutankhamun and Titanic exhbitions (a Spanish company called Madrid Artes Digitales, fyi), here comes The Last Days of Pompeii. As with its predecessors, the massive scale international touring show will mix historical artifacts from the doomed Roman town and casts of the bodies entombed there during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius with slick techie stuff including an immersive film that puts you (safely) inside the eruption, and bits of VR that let you explore the bustling Roman town prior to its shocking demise.