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Secret Cinema<br />
SECRET CINEMA/L<strong>UK</strong>E DYSON/FRASER GILLESPIE<br />
of murder. We did it in some tunnels beneath<br />
London Bridge, filled with ramps and<br />
halfpipes, and the audience became part of<br />
the skateboard community in this hideout,<br />
with staged police investigations.”<br />
With each year, the events grew<br />
in scale and ingenuity: Alien, Lawrence of<br />
Arabia, Ghostbusters. Word-of-mouth built<br />
hype, but attendees kept the secret. “I think<br />
there’s a real desire to escape the looped<br />
existence we have, where everything is<br />
revealed and predictable, and everyone knows<br />
where everyone is on social media,” says<br />
Riggall. “In a world addicted to information,<br />
that idea of secrecy is critical, as is a physical,<br />
social thing you have to invest in – one you<br />
can’t just click and download.”<br />
Getting the audience invested has become<br />
a science for Secret Cinema. “Lawrence Of<br />
Arabia [2010] was the first time the audience<br />
was really asked to participate,” says<br />
Kulkarni. “At Alexandra Palace, we made a<br />
huge souk [marketplace]. <strong>The</strong>y had to bring<br />
things to barter with, and exchanges were<br />
happening on the Tube before they arrived.<br />
We had Bedouin tents, and camels and horses<br />
wandering out of Ally Pally.”<br />
This attention to detail is even brought<br />
to smaller events. “Secret Cinema X is an<br />
underground format where we show films<br />
that haven’t been released,” says Moccia.<br />
“In 2017, we did a ‘Tell No One’ production,<br />
where we don’t tell people what they’re going<br />
to see.” It was <strong>The</strong> Handmaiden by Korean<br />
director Park Chan-wook. “<strong>The</strong> performance<br />
was done with silhouettes and you couldn’t<br />
speak throughout the night. Walking into<br />
a room with 1,000-plus people, all completely<br />
silent. And at the bar you had to order on<br />
a piece of paper. It was beautiful.”<br />
In 2014, Secret Cinema delivered its most<br />
ambitious project to date: Back To <strong>The</strong><br />
Future – a recreation of Hill Valley near<br />
London’s Olympic Village. “People could<br />
write letters to each other and postal workers<br />
would deliver them within the venue,” says<br />
Kulkarni. “Each house had a telephone you<br />
could call the other houses with.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> sheer scale proved too staggering; the<br />
show wasn’t ready in time for launch. “It was<br />
devastating not to be able to open on that<br />
first night,” recalls Moccia. “But it’s a learning<br />
process.” <strong>The</strong> show finally opened to rave<br />
“You get to a point<br />
where the audience<br />
are the performers”<br />
Moulin Rouge,<br />
Printworks London (2017)<br />
"<strong>The</strong> cast and team were like<br />
family, much like the Moulin Rouge<br />
in 1900," says Moccia. "During<br />
the run, the Manchester bombings<br />
and the Westminster terror attack<br />
happened. We got the audience to<br />
sing along to <strong>The</strong> Show Must Go<br />
On. I'm tearing up as I speak about<br />
it. It was a really moving moment."<br />
<strong>The</strong> Handmaiden,<br />
Troxy (2017)<br />
"We got the venue<br />
at 5am and had<br />
to produce the show<br />
that night," recalls<br />
Bennett. "Following<br />
the film's repressiveuncle<br />
narrative that<br />
no one can talk in his<br />
house, the audience<br />
took a vow of silence.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y loved it."<br />
reviews, but nature almost intervened. At<br />
11pm one night, a surprise rainstorm struck.<br />
“Every costume was soaked,” say Kulkarni.<br />
“We had to find a way to clean and dry 600<br />
costumes in 12 hours. We hot-boxed an entire<br />
cabin and put everything in it.”<br />
If Back To <strong>The</strong> Future was a lesson in<br />
untempered ambition, it didn’t shown; the<br />
next year, Secret Cinema took it up another<br />
notch with <strong>The</strong> Empire Strikes Back.<br />
“It took a year of talking to eight<br />
stakeholders, from Lucasfilm to Bad Robot<br />
to Disney to Fox,” says Riggall. “[Lucasfilm<br />
president] Kathy Kennedy supported us. As<br />
exec producer on Back to the Future, she was<br />
impressed with what we did there. But to give<br />
us the rights to do that movie in the year they<br />
were releasing <strong>The</strong> Force Awakens – a $2 billion<br />
franchise – was extraordinary. <strong>The</strong>n, to find<br />
an old newspaper factory to build Star Wars<br />
in… that was an insane ambition.”<br />
“It was an old printing press not fit for<br />
audience members,” says Moccia of the<br />
building that is now the nightclub Printworks<br />
London. “We transformed it and put in three<br />
productions: <strong>The</strong> Empire Strikes Back, Dr<br />
Strangelove and 28 Days Later.”<br />
“I wanted to build a gigantic Secret<br />
Cinema that could stay there for ever,” says<br />
Riggall. “We put a lot of work into it, invested<br />
a great deal, but I know the guys who set up<br />
Printworks, and good on them.” He sees<br />
Secret Cinema’s contribution to the buildings<br />
it inhabits as a positive. “So many are empty,<br />
waiting years for planning permission.<br />
Developers are opening their eyes to what<br />
we do. We can create this ‘meanwhile use’,<br />
filling them with happy people experiencing<br />
something. I like to think that in the depths<br />
of the night, as people are dancing to some<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 49