Long-running immersive show The Great Gatsby is to return to London this autumn.
Presented by The Guild of Misrule and Immersive Everywhere, the trial production re-imagines the setting of Gatsby’s party as a 1920s masquerade ball, and will have the audience—who in any event dress in costume to attend—wearing masks and gloves.
This promenade production lends itself to social distancing which will be facilitated by significantly reduced capacity audiences, and the show itself is being modified to exclude high-risk activity.
Everyone, including audience members, will be temperature checked on arrival at the West End London venue, which itself will be deep cleaned before and after every performance including the bar equipment being sterilised. The producers are also arranging the installation of hand sanitisers. Other measures will be adopted to comply with prevailing guidelines.
Producers Louis Hartshorn and Brian Hook said, “we want to offer something for people to look forward to following this extended lockdown. Our show has several inherent features that make it safer than a trip to the supermarket, so we’re embracing that and innovating. Hopefully we can provide a blueprint for other productions to open safely and be part of the process of restoring employment and the economy of the creative industries.
“Naturally, public health is the highest priority of all, and this will be the driving force behind all of our decisions. We’re implementing a no-questions-asked exchange policy so that if circumstances change, whether in general or for any individual, our patrons will be fully protected. We would like to thank our landlord, Grosvenor Estates, and our producing partners and investors for their creativity, camaraderie and continued support.”
The Great Gatsby is created from F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel by Alexander Wright.
It was first produced in 2015 in York, seen in Sheffield the following year and sold out at London's VAULT Festival in 2017. Subsequently the show has had a run in Wales in co-production with Theatr Clwyd, at Castle Howard in North Yorkshire and at Gatsby’s Drugstore in London where it became the UK’s longest running immersive production.
Alexander Wright directs, Amie Burns Walker and Oliver Tilney are associate directors and Holly Beasley-Garrigan is the choreographer. The original score was composed and produced by Glen Brown and Tendai Humphrey Sitima, with arrangement and additional composition by David Sims.
The Great Gatsby will open at Immersive | LDN on 1 October. Tickets can be booked online.