ING NEW FOR EASTER
Van Gogh: The Immersive
Experience by Richard Godwin
“I’ve got to admit,” said Teddy, eight,
as we walked to catch the train to
visit Van Gogh: The Immersive
Experience. “I’m not too keen on
expeditions.”
This is a cruel blow to any parent
who has scattered their child’s path
with high art. Did all that cradleside
Debussy mean nothing? It turned out
that Teddy was thinking of the Beano
“expedition” we had taken him to at
Somerset House a few months back.
“It was just looking at stuff in a place.”
As an avid Beano reader, he found it a
“bit boring”.
To be fair, so did I. A fun subject
given a grown-up treatment seems
an excellent way to put children off
exhibitions. So how about a
grown-up subject given a fun
treatment? Teddy, Aubrey (aged one)
and I were about to find out.
Van Gogh: The Immersive
Experience — not to be confused
with Van Gogh Alive, showing in
Edinburgh — promised to transform
the post-impressionist painter’s
descent into madness into the
“perfect outing for all ages”, using
360-degree multimedia projections
and virtual reality headsets. It began
life in Naples, 2017, and has since
toured everywhere from Dallas to
Hangzhou. Online reports suggest
Van Gogh immersive experiences
mushroomed in popularity after
the Netflix series Emily in Paris. Van
Gogh-a-Go-Go! To be clear, not a
drop of oil paint was spilled in the
making of this exhibition. It’s the sort
of place where you are directed
where to stand for the best selfie.But so what? Van Gogh has long
since been memefied by far more
august institutions. And happily, my
inner aesthete was soon drowned by
Teddy’s sincere enthusiasm. He
spent a good few minutes choosing
his favourite Van Gogh self-portrait,
finally settling on Self Portrait as
Painter (1888). He was intrigued to
learn that Starry Night was painted
from the window of Van Gogh’s
asylum. Does a child mind that all the
paintings are poster-quality replicas?
Not really, no.
As for Aubrey, he was so inspired
by the 3D recreation of The
Bedroom (1888) in Arles that he
made an impetuous dash for the
bed. Van Gogh wrote to his brother,
Theo, that when he painted this
famous room he removed the
shadows and flattened the
colours so it would appear two-
dimensional, like a Japanese print.
Now the third dimension has been
restored. That’s posterity for you.
The centrepiece is a vast
two-storey room offering full
“artistic immersion”: projections
of brushstrokes, sunflowers and
stars sparkling all around. We all
liked this a lot. Aubrey toddled
around saying: “Pretty! Pretty!”
Teddy found it “inspirational”.
Complaints? It’s expensive. There’s
a limited selection of crayons in the
colouring-in bit. But when I told
Teddy there was an exhibition of Van
Gogh’s actual self-portraits at the
Courtauld right now, he said: “Ooh,
can we go?” I’d say that’s a result.
On show at 106 Commercial Street,
London E1; touring to Bristol, York
and Leicester; vangoghexpo.com‘NO PAINTINGS, JUST VR HEADSETS’
Camelot Rises
Lancashire’s disused Camelot
theme park hosts a post-apocalyptic
drive-in cinema, where audience
members have to make it through
infected zones chased by zombies
before arriving at the Safe Zone for
a horror film screening.Peaky Blinders: The Rise
From the team behind the Great
Gatsby show on in London now,
this prequel opens in June at the
Vanguard Theatre in London
following the rise in fortune of
Tommy Shelby and his family.Coventry City of Culture
The UK’s first permanent
immersive digital art gallery
opens in the City of Culture
next month. The first exhibition
at the Reel Store is a collaboration
with Nasa using artificial
intelligence to capture outer space.
It joins other immersive experiences
— including wild interactive show
Animals! (Apr 11-22) and NoFit
State Circus’s stranded ship family
performance Pirates of the Canal
Basin (Apr 21-24).Chernobyl: Hidden Depths
In a bizarre blend of escape room,
gaming, theatre and film, Line of
Duty writer Jeremy Drysdale’s
story at this Birmingham site
sets up challenges for small
groups to solve to escape
Chernobyl power plant’s Reactor
4 just before meltdown.The Gunpowder Plot
Opening next month, this mix of
immersive theatre and virtual reality
combines live actors and digital
technology in the Tower of London’s
vaults, where the audience go
undercover to infiltrate the plotters.The Queen of the Ocean
This touring show recreates the
first-class dining saloon of the RMS
Titanic, with the five-course menu
served on the night of April 14,
1912, which the audience chomps
through while the crew tries to
prevent catastrophe.OTHERS TO TRY
RICHARD GODWINMALCOLM PARKit as a mirror. Eveleen went for another
beer and was roundly denounced as
an alcoholic, while a youth nearby
was treated to Basil’s anti-German
routine. He cringed and blushed but
the dining room roared.
Mary got Sybil’s nasal vowels and
juddering laugh perfectly. Moon’s
Manuel and Saunders’s Basil
combined well to pull off the
slapstick violence. Manuel climbed
on our table to conduct a chorus of
Viva España. The Texans tutted at
the marks left on the tablecloth by
his shoes.
A New Yorker called Warren
downed his soup happily but most
people failed to finish theirs, creating
slops for Manuel to stick his thumb
into (proper waiters were also on
hand, thank goodness).
If you gag at food leftovers being
scraped off a plate, this show isn’t
for you. But as a work of drama and
farcical excess it did come to a
decent boil, Manuel chasing his pet
rat under a table and Basil erupting
in a crazed rant about customers
before making a goose-step exit with
a pair of women’s pants on his head.
Applause from all, including me. But
not from the Texans.
On until Dec in London, then touring
the UK; torquaysuitetheatre.com10 April 2022 11