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I wish I'd said to that guy - the thing is I'm recovering from cancer. I wonder if he'd have cracked, or still expected me to sit on dirty steps.
A bit of a happier day today as I came to London for a RHLSTP staff party. After a decade of filming the shows with a crew we've had to accept that it's too big a cost given we make no money from it and we'll just be recording audio and using a single static camera from now on. Which is a shame as the team at the LST has been a big part of it, including Jess who works for the theatre, but is about to move to pastures new. So anyway a gang of us went to Aldgate today to have a crack at the
War of the Worlds interactive experience. I didn't know if it would be naff, brilliant, scary or laughable - but it was all of these things and more! Having done a few things like this with the kids - and at Disneyland - I thought it would probably not be great and it wasn't cheap, but I think it was worth the cost. There was loads going on - it takes so long to do it that you actually get an interval and it was a glorious mixture of scenes involving actors and then stuff on screen and some impressive VR. There were thrills, spills (of water in your face) and some shocks, but lots of laughs. The scariest bit was an unexpected slide that we had to go down, which really got my heart thumping. The actors were excellent, tongue in cheek when they needed to be, deadly earnest at others and we got to travel through Victorian London and out to sea and through outer space. Sometimes the VR would be a little shonky - sometimes it registered your own hands but at one point I had one unmoving ghost are - and when we were on the rowing boat one of the characters in front of me was sitting at an alarming angle, but it was definitely immersive and mainly realistic and I wondered how far VR would go in my lifetime (I hope it will get to the point where you can Groundhog Day specific days from your life and make them go right or more wrong this time - maybe that's what's already happening).
It was fun doing it with a gang of mates. I can't recommend it enough. Loads of fun. I was just annoyed there was no opportunity to say "I could have dug that much in a day" though I annoyed the soldier who was building a new world underground by being the only one to go against him and say we should fight. As a result all of us were ejected from his lair, but I presume if you all go along with him then you go a different way and never have to leave.
We had pizza and burgers and got a photo so it was a really strong team building activity. Sad that we did it just as the team is disbanding. For now at least. But it was a strong send off. And we beat the Martians. Or some bacteria did. Still counts.
