One of London's newest immersive theatre experiences is the "War of the Worlds" experience, based on the musical by Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds". This is based on the original science fiction story by H.G. Wells, one of the founders of the science fiction genre. The experience launched in May and is due to finish in November. It has taken over 22,000 square feet of a building on Leadenhall Street in the City of London and includes a bar/cafe that visitors off the street can enjoy without requiring tickets to the attraction and another bar halfway through the experience. I visited the experience last weekend.
I arrived at the venue early in order to have a drink and a enjoy the atmosphere in the bar and restaurant area. Ticketed visitors are expected to arrive no later than 15 minutes before their time as otherwise they will not be permitted. Visitors go into groups in up to twelve; I visited on the Sunday, and most slots had at least two spare spaces. Because I was there early, we got to go into the slot before the one we were booked into, which ended up being better because there were only five people in that time, and the slot we would have had had eight people in it already.
The bar itself is inspired by Victorian steampunk as H.G. Wells wrote his stories in the late 1800s. ('The Time Machine' 1960 version, one of my favourite films, and it also includes a similar design with the time machine, which has become an icon.)
In the middle of the bar room, the main feature is a Martian creature inspired by the alien creatures in the story.
The experience takes place over ten rooms with visitors led into different rooms that have been decorated to add to the story: a Victorian living room, an observation room with telescopes, a church, a graveyard, underground tunnels, a hot air balloon, and a dock to name a few. Real actors and actresses helped to bring the story to life and guided us through the journey. In some places, to make the story come to life, visitors wore a VR (virtual reality) headset to experience the Martians and other characters throughout the story. The VR headsets were a little choppy and glitchy at times, but each visitor was transformed into a Victorian character in the VR world and watched the aliens attack. The person I went with had their headset fail in one place, and both of our headsets glitched in the balloon ride without being able to see the full experience. The other VR characters did look slightly creepy.
Overall, the experience was really good and really fun, and the actors and actresses really helped bring it to life and engage us in the setting. The VR was put together well, minus some of the glitches, and it helped to bring the story along. To help the pacing, we had a twenty minute break half the way through our journey in a bar, which was just enough time to get a cocktail or ice cream. With the experience cost, we included a cocktail in the bar called the "Red Weed cocktail". This cocktail was dressed in red vines as if taken over by the alien creatures, and the music in the bar was an extended version of one of the songs from the Jeff Wayne musical.
At the end of the experience, it was time for lunch. I had a pizza, and the person I went with had a steak pie. We both thought that the food and drinks were very good and were surprised that many others were not staying for food and drink. If you do go to the experience, leave room for a bite to eat after the experience. The cocktails were also very good and strong.
Overall, this was a very good experience. It was a little similar to the 'Star Wars' experience in Westfield a few years ago which allowed you to be part of the action and actually interact by shooting virtual stormtroopers and enemies. The organisers of the "War of the Worlds" immersive experience are known as dotdotdot, and this is their second large production after their award-winning dream experience Somnai. I look forward to seeing what else they achieve.
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