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I’m always wary of missing vowels even before the Layered Reality team at Immerse LDN promise we’ll “relive the King’s iconic moments” via “cutting-edge digital technology” and “walk in his blue velvet shoes.” Two hours more padded than a spangly 1977 jumpsuit later, I can report it’s not just letters missing (which BTW spookily spell out ‘Noo’).
Digital technology these days, frankly, implies ABBAtars. I mean, the War of the Worlds concert tour had a Liam Neeson hologram way back in 2011.
Built around The King’s legendary 1968 TV special, everything builds and builds in increasing frenzy to literal seconds of AI Elvis on a screen staring in his dressing table mirror and then him head-on just, umm, blinking. And that’s it. It’s a catastrophic disappointment. And that’s before the promise of plural iconic moments. We categorically do not see, let alone “relive” any other seminal scenes from a life bulging and bursting at the seams with them.
We start at CBS studios. Like each of the rooms we traipse through, the attention to detail in doubtless impressive, but also absolutely without context. Harried TV execs muttering that the star is having a meltdown tell us we’re the studio audience for the broadcast. A guy bursts in saying he’s the icon’s childhood friend Sam Bell.
Cue repeated guff from him about Elvis needing people he can trust around him. Why? We never find out since this show has so many facts excised we never hear about his Svengali’ish managed Colonel Parker, the hangers-on, users and exploiters, and Elvis’ own tortured turmoil at that moment about his life and career. Nothing.
The show came as The King’s film career was ignobly fading out and he hadn’t been a relevant music chart star for years. Parker (who we never meet of hear of) wanted the show to be Christmas themed light entertainment guff. The director Steve Binder (who we never meet or hear of) encouraged Elvis to rediscover his raw love of music. Elvis fought back when they tried to silence him and made a very rare defiant stand. He insisted on a cool acoustic segment, and singing the controversial Black Rights protest anthem If I Can Dream.
This is all major, important and fascinating stuff and absolutely none of it is remotely referenced in all the ‘acted’ segments which (despite the valiant multitasking cast of four) feel like am dram children’s entertainment.
Instead, with Sam as our narrator guide we take a train ride back to the star’s birthplace Tupelo, watch recreated videos of tiny Sam and Elvis playing, briefly mention the influence of Black music, take in a church service, spend five minutes at the seismically important Sun Records then video montage back to 1968, whipping dizzyingly past pics and clips of The King’s blazing rise to fame with absolutely no commentary or context.
Oh yes, Sun Records, which signed Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and so many more. Fascinating. Skimmed over. Elvis’ upbringing around and debt to Black music at least gets some attention, but we learn nothing about what he took from it, no insights into how it set him apart from other artists.
The whole show is a staggering disservice to every element of the story. We seem to learn more about Sam’s high school football career, military service, garage job and girlfriend. Why? We do not remotely care. They never met again after childhood.
We briefly drown our sorrows at the interval tiki bar before we are rushed through his changing room suite which chock-full of period detail and numerous Elvis Easter eggs (about which we are told absolutely nothing) and then ushered into the studio where the TV special will be filmed. Even at that point, I still felt hope that maybe the big reveal was coming. Guess what?
Instead, three musicians take their places on stage, representing the ones from the acoustic segment of the 1968 special. Again, brief AI flashes on the screen hint something is about to happen. But no. Instead, we get the archive footage of Elvis on backdrop screens accompanied by the live trio for several numbers. You could literally just watch this on Youtube. It would be cheaper and way more thrilling to hire a cinema with mates and run the entire TV special.
Elvis’ estate handed over thousands of photos and hours of footage and this is all we get? Any half-cocked deepfake vid online could do better.
As for those ludicrous prices… The standard ticket is £75. The VIP packages include various drinks, reserved seating at the broadcast scene, photo ops and memorabilia.
To misquote the elusive man himself, wise men say only fools rush in and pay for this misrepresented travesty of a show.
ELVIS EVOLUTION AT EXCEL WATERFRONT
