Suspending our disbelief for The Empire Strikes Back – Secret Cinema

I took Jonah along to see The Empire Strikes Back at the Secret Cinema last night, after we bought a pair of tickets cheap off a friend. The thing is, it is really super expensive for night at the flicks. I paid £100 quid for a pair of tickets, but as kids over 8 go for £54, I only saved myself about £20 on the actual priced tickets, which are £78 for adults. But this did at least mean I felt I could splurge on the delights on offer once you get inside – at times, you can feel a bit like the most amazing thing about Secret Cinema is how much money you can spend while you’re there. From putting together a costume, remembering to take along props (you need to take something to trade), getting there (a secret location that was, luckily for us, not too far away) and once there, being held captive for a solid five hours (occasionally behind bars), you can rack up a fairly extensive bill. And with everything on sale inside contactless, you can do it without every really knowing quite how much you’ve spent. It’s quite a slick money making operation.

Of course, this is not just a night at the flicks. It’s a 360 degree immersive experience where everyone joins in playing a massive game of  ‘let’s pretend’. Which is kind of why I really enjoyed going with a child. I do think it might feel a bit weird, aged 35, to go with a bunch of mates. Perhaps you just need to be a bit pissed. As it was, I was a bit hungover (not recommended). But, despite that,  for one night only, Jonah suspended his disbelief, and the two of us had more fun playing make believe than you could possibly imagine.

Jonah’s never been a dressy up kinda kid. He never liked having his face painted, and only submitted to wearing a superhero costume once for a party we threw when he was four. Beyond that, he’s been a fairly straight down the line boy for whom imagination is a bit of a struggle. So when I told him we were going to Star Wars, he looked at me funny and then, having experienced the magic of Disney, he said, “OK cool” and seemed pretty up for it. We looked at some costumes online. Jonah, being a bit dark side, wanted to go as Daft Vader (£20 from the Disney shop), but Tom, who’d read up on it, as usual, said we had to dress as rebels.

Secret-cinema goers were provided covert instructions to join the Rebel Alliance, with ideas for costumes (available at a pop-up shop in Dalston, natch) to join at a secret location to battle the Dark Side. Head scarves and goggles were suggested, to cope with the desert sand and hide our identities, so I dug out Jonah’s old judo kimono and ski goggles, making him a perfect Anakin Skywalker, while I modelled myself so successfullyon Natalie Portman’s Padmé desert-gear that I was offered my own security detail once inside. It was amazing to arrive and see the dribs and drabs of people turning up, fully decked out. There was, of course, the obligatory man dressed as Princess Leia, and many weird and wonderful outfits, including someone who appeared to have come as a lump of rock, (who was in fact meant to be a carbonised Han Solo) but everyone had made an effort and quickly got into character.

As we were ushered through, hustled into containers, made to run on the spot, and have a basic medical, I did wonder about what possessed most adults to put themselves through this kind of rigmarole on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, but Jonah, who was made commander of our fleet for running the hardest, took it all so seriously that it forced me to put on my best improv hat (last worn when I did drama GCSE) and get stuck in. As we entered the desert, we were given a mission to go and find a wookie to give him a coin, whereupon we entered a chase around a convincingly mocked up desert market, complete with heat lamps and sand, selling food clothes and trinkets, where it was necessary to chat gibberish to ewoks, all the while Star Wars characters acted out skits all around us. There was C3PO and R2D2, Obi wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker all interacting with people in character, while the genuinely terrifying storm troopers paced around, occasionally pointing their weapons. Off course, we’d had our “communications devices sealed off” so there was no taking pictures, or getting it on Facebook which made for a more immersive experience all round. Chewbacca, once we found him, was brilliantly realistic and about 8 foot tall, and as we bartered for goods to pay our passage off the planet (all the while sampling some of the yummy food on display (we had rather sandy baklava, Turkish delight, and chicken wrap and fries), we ran into more characters, who drip fed us more information about our mission. Jonah kept up with the storyline rather better than me!

Eventually, we were loaded onto a spacecraft, for a genuinely bumpy ride and crash landing onto the Death Star, where we were marched by storm troopers into prison, until rebel members freed us. All this was brilliant, but, mildly hung-over from the previous day, it was also at this point that I began to feel a little bit like I was trapped in a nightmare from which there was no escape, and I could tell Jonah was running out of steam. There was a little bit of aimless wandering after all the excitement, where we weren’t sure what was going on, as lost our bearings round a brilliantly bleak multi-level warehouse – I definitely felt that this bit could have been shorter, but then most people there were quite happy to enjoy the entertainment while that had a few drinks, rather than having to keep a mildly impatient child engaged. But eventually we came across Darth Vader (much scarier in real life) mid-negotiation with Princess Leia, where we watched as he blew up the planet Anderon we’d been on just moments previously.

The grand finale to all this  was spectacular, with parents and children ushered on to a balcony where they could see the action as Luke Skywalker took to the skies to save the day. It really was a wonderful moment, and as the rebels whooped and yelled, and fell in behind the jubilant victors, the atmosphere for settling down to watch an old school movie many of us last watched as children was pretty pumped.

The problem was, by this point, Jonah was pretty knackered, I was all too aware it was a school night, and with single layer seating (and plastic at that) it was quite a long time for him to sit still dodging someone’s head. Of course, there were more opportunities to buy drinks and snacks to help keep him enthralled, and as he sat on my lap, munching popcorn, it did feel like perhaps this would be the last time my big nine year old boy would feel so comfortable doing that in public, ever again. I made the most of it, even as I got pins and needles in my legs.

As we left, (thankfully met by Tom in the car to take us home) with a contraband crystal as a memento, swapped with an ewok for a packet of parma violets (at that price, I felt he was owed it), it still light and balmy outside despite the late hour, and we both agreed it had been one of the most awesome nights out together ever (although at nine years old, Jonah and I  have many more to look forward to). And he was still talking about it with his sister this morning, and I rather suspect he may still be talking about it for many days, weeks and years, yet to come.