Longer than a tweet: Secret Cinema

On Sunday I went to the latest Secret Cinema event.

If you haven't heard of Secret Cinema, they organise screenings of classic films in unusual venues that fit the film in some way. On top of that they use actors to create an atmosphere in keeping with the film, by maybe taking on the roles of specific characters, and interacting with the audience. Finally, on top of that, you don;t know what you're going to see when you buy the tickets. They release clues which means you can have a pretty fair idea, but you can't be certain.

So, what did clues did we have to go on? Well, the event was announced with a youtube link to 'The Sound of Silence'. Immediate thoughts were of 'The Graduate'. Later, we were asked to arrive with a dressing gown, slippers, toothbrush. This had me thinking 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Glaxay' (as Arthur Dent is in his dressing gown throughout the story), but let's face facts, they didn't make a very good film out of it, did they? But the buzz among my friends going was that it was a hospital or asylum based film: probably 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' or maybe 'The Road to Wellville'. These opinions were enforced when we were sent an email from 'The New Well Being Foundation' that asked us to fill in questionaires before the event.

Secret Cinema ask you to 'Tell No One', so avoiding finding out what the film actually was wasn't difficult. So when we all met a the tube station at noon on Sunday we were still non the wiser. We arrived with our dressing gowns in our bags, but a few brave souls turned up wearing theirs. After a little while there was one of those strange, unsaid group decisions and we were all donning our gowns. Just in time, as down the street we saw a group of three guys in started white shirts with black bow ties coming towards us, accompanied by a man in a blue lab coat with a clip board.

These gentlemen rounded us up and led us in a crocodile up the street. It was about a ten minute walk to the destination, from time to time we'd spot another 'Doctor' in a lab coat on the other side of the street, making notes on their clip board. After a little while we stopped and were told that the patients we still sleeping, so we had to be quiet from here on in. We rounded a corner and stood in line outside the locked gates of an old building. One of the bow tie guys picked up a few pebbles and threw them, one by one, at the building until one rattled against a window. After a little while the door slowly opened and a figure poked his head out of the door, took a look around and came out to unlock the gates.

Then a stern, figure appeared : a nurse with a startched uniform and almost as starched hairstyle. At last we knew for certain : Nurse Ratched from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Following Nurse Ratched, in V formation, were more doctors and nurses. The party stopped some distance from the gate, Nurse Ratched briefly inspected us, nodded, turned on her heals marched back into the building. The rest of her party filed out to meet us.

They worked their way along the rows, delivering a warning from the New Well Being Foundation about any treatments that we were about to receive and ticking us off the ticket list. We then entered the gates, got a wrist band (there were four colours, which we later discovered determined which screen you saw the film on - white: upstairs, first room), got a patients gown and were allowed entry to the building.

It was an old hospital. Nurses, Doctors and orderlies (the guys in white shirts and bow ties) in the corridors or behind desks. As the building filled up we explored the ground floor, finding quite a few gruesome installations. We also discovered some sleeping patients, safely locked up, somewhere to buy 'medication' (alcohol), but only if you had a prescription (which you bought elsewhere). After a while, I guess when everyone was inside, the PA announced that it was wake up time, and the patients appeared.

So we had the whole cast, which you could interact with as the mood took you. More and more areas of the hospital gradually became open to us : we discovered a 'morgue', an ECT room, a brain dissection room (complete with edible jelly brain), the recreation rooms with music therapy, painting or yoga session. While we took a break in a side (bath)room, set up with a monopoly board, a doctor approached us and gave us a few pills (candy). I quite enjoyed the banter with the actors, but it took me a while to warm to the idea of it. I think at the back of my mind I was remembering 'live action role playing' and shying away from that. I wonder how many of the people happily pretending to be a patient in a mental hospital would mock who pretended to be a mighty warrior in the woods every weekend. I know that I probably would.

Finally the film was screened. I can't remember the last time I sat and watched 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' all the way through. I remembered the main parts, but had forgotten others. For example, I remembered the bus being stolen, but not that they went fishing after that. The ECT scene was just as harrowing as ever.

Overall I was very impressed with the production values, the attention to detail and the fun of Secret Cinema. I think the more you put in, the more you;d get out and if I go again I'm going to make an effort to engage the actors more. And it's a terrible shame that I didn't discover it a year ago as they put on 'Blade Runner', one of my favourite films.