London is a city in which ‘immersive’ entertainment has become big business. Although the term could retrospectively be applied to all sorts of things – theme parks! paintball! Roman orgies! – it’s only in the last decade or so that it’s become a ubiquitous description for basically any sort of live show with an interactive element. It’s a descriptor that has long been applied to pioneering theatre companies like Punchdrunk (whose work was originally referred to as ‘site-specific’).
But their arty masterworks feel like their own thing. In fact, probably the most influential purveyor is Secret Cinema, whose increasingly grandiose line in pre-film entertainment for screenings of classic movies has upstaged the films themselves (its latest, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, includes the option to not even bother watching the film).
Source: Immersed in London: doing five immersive London shows in 12 hours