Sssssssh - Secret Cinema

The suited and booted daytime denizens of London's Canary Wharf, normally content on a balmy summer's evening to down pints of champagne whilst wafting each other with wads of £100 notes, must have wondered this week why a futuristic circus of gaudily garbed plebs had decided to descend upon their gleaming playground...

Unbeknownst to the bankers, Secret Cinema had hit town - creating a hush-hush hysteria with another of their amazing all-encompassing shows. Leaving a trail of clues across Facebook, Twitter and other such sites as to this months mystery film, Secret Cinema actively encourage the brave and the curious to dress up like total tools without fear of scorn or recourse.


Brollies and goggles were de rigueur for this outing - which was a bit of a giveaway in itself - but with more than enough red-herrings dropped, punters were left tossing between Blade Runner and the Fifth Element as the film of choice. Savvy chaps the SC lot are, they made us all think we were most likely about to witness Luc Besson's disappointing day-glo fantasy before a genuine Blade Runner commandeered our transporter (well, bus) and began interrogating likely suspects.

Once arrived at our secret location the effort put into fully immersing joe public into the world of Blade Runner was a sight to behold - an analog future from the film itself realised in 3 dimensions - and without the use of cardboard glasses, no less!



Food stalls, reptiles, avenues and alleyways straight out of the cinema, populated with cast members wandering about - all doing their best to recreate all your favourite moments from the Ridley Scott's dystopian down-beater.


Peeps could even take part in their very own Voight-Kampff test, to find out if they were replicants themselves - unsuccessful candidates presumably swiftly gunned down afterwards for their trouble...

The film itself could only be a mild-let down after all the hoopla surrounding it - especially in a drafty warehouse auditorium, but we did get the added bonus of sitting next to a completely motionless Pris lookalike, who pegged it like the clappers when a Blade Runner came to investigate just before the film rolled.

If I'm being particularly harsh it almost seemed like the picture became an after-thought to the overall package and personally speaking, I would have preferred a bunch of trails for similar pics ahead of it, rather than a Bjork vid and some video game commercials. Perhaps I'd have been more charitable had I not shelled out for the blu-ray a few weeks previous...

Nonetheless, this was an absolutely stellar event and you'd have to be a pretty hard-hearted film lover not to walk away impressed with the show-stopping production values surrounding you. Best of all, with a location like the deserted sky-scrapers of Canary Wharf to amble through once the film was over, we really did stroll home thinking we could well be in the movie itself...