Review: ELVIS EVOLUTION, Immerse LDN

So, finally, Elvis Evolution has entered the building. 

This show has been a long time coming. First announced in January 2024, Layered Reality’s immersive theatre about the life and work of the King of Rock n Roll was initially due to launch in London last November before going onto Las Vegas, Tokyo and Berlin. The opening was then pushed back four months to this March and then May before being postponed again to this month. The latest delay was attributed to unforeseen issues with an unnamed supplier going into administration.

Making the wait all that more tantalising is the promise behind this production. When it was first announced, Layered Reality didn't hold back on their intentions saying that the show will feature a "jaw-dropping concert experience" featuring a life-sized digital Elvis that "will perform iconic moments in musical history on a UK stage for the first time". 

Less than a year ago, the company's founder and CEO Andrew McGuinness claimed that the latest experience includes holograms, projection mapping, surround sound, large-scale LED screens and haptics. In words that will no doubt come back to haunt him, he described the finished product as being "a fusion of theatre, cinema and something like ABBA Voyage.”

Layered Reality’s Jeff Wayne’s Musical War Of The Worlds: The Immersive Experience has been terrifying audiences with its alien invasion tale since 2019 with its appealing mix of holograms, virtual reality, practical effects, committed actors and that fantastic album. For this, they have partnered with Authentic Brands Group, the owners of the Elvis Presley estate to create a journey through the life of the iconic singer and for fans to “step into the world of Elvis, walk in his shoes and celebrate his extraordinary musical legacy”. 

Well, that’s the plan. Those looking to find a rounded impression of the boy from Tupelo will be sorely disappointed. No-one is expecting to see a bloated Elvis dying of a heart attack on the loo, one hand wrapped around his final peanut butter and banana sandwich, the other around an open bottle of amphetamines, but there is a definite skew away from the personal side of his life and towards well-trodden parts of his mythos. For example, an overlong scene describes how Sun Records owner Sam Phillips and his assistant Marion Keisker first record Presley and are blown away by his talent; in contrast, there are only very oblique references throughout to his wife Priscilla and his long-term manager Colonel Tom Parker.

The cast is small - one actor plays Elvis’ black childhood friend Sam Bell while three others take on a confusing cascade of multiple roles who all come with incredibly thick Bible belt accents - but they work hard for us and each other. Apart from the overarching concept that hurtles us eventually towards the comeback concert, there’s precious little narrative to cling onto. And what there is comes in out-of-order bitesize chunks that more digestible (and as nourishing) as any one of Elvis's beloved snacks.

Like Layered Reality’s other recent shows (including their recently-closed The Gunpowder Plot), the audience are given a role before being taken from room to room. We’re all ostensibly here as the audience for Elvis’s 1968 comeback TV appearance and his first live performance in about seven years. Our job is to clap and cheer on a nervous King as he seeks to restart his career at a time when the nation had anything but music on their minds: massive social upheaval and high profile assassinations were the theme of the year with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr shot in January and presidential candidate RFK killed mere weeks before this recording took place. Some of that heady atmosphere permeates into proceedings but too little and too late. 

Unlike War Of The Worlds, this is a decidedly low-tech affair with no VR, AR and barely perceptible AI. Instead, the mid-twentieth century is recreated chiefly through practical effects and a raft of memorabilia. Channel 4 tied up a £1.75m “media for equity” deal with Layered Reality last year and that boost (alongside the tie-up with the Presley estate) has obviously filtered through into the physical side of Elvis Evolution.

The various theatre spaces and all three bars look fantastic and are packed with period details and paraphernalia including jukeboxes, records, posters and photos of the contemporary musical figures. The clothing and props all look authentic too and, even if Elvis Evolution feels more like a museum exhibition at times, help set up the general vibe. 

The two longest set pieces are disappointingly erratic. In the first, we are ushered into a double-wide theatre with flat seating where, with the aid of effective video, lighting, sound and flowery scents, we are transported to Presley’s first home in Mississippi. That sensory overload is a taster of what is to come in a sequence where director and lead creative Jack Pirie pulls out all the theatrical stops. Then keeps pulling. And pulling.

A cinematic childhood scene is followed by animation which gives way to live acting. Smells come and go while, like a washing machine doing a gentle wash, a rumble pack under our bums jolts us every now and then to chime in with the storyline. We go through churches, a recording studio and Presley’s first gig aided by PA voiceovers and music interlaced with live singing from the stage. 

Midway through this section, partitions to the left and right are lowered and, with the help of projections, the audience is enveloped in virtual scenery. The action shifts from place to place too fast to really feel immersed in any one place. The flat seating and the pillars in the middle of the room mean that sightlines are not the best. The plot gambols along like a randy rabbit in search of a willing mate, hopping here, hopping there, hopping everywhere but never letting us peek too deeply into the adult Elvis.

The grand finale which simulates the 1968 comeback gig is the very definition of chutzpah. Looking on the bright side, this could have ended up being some poor sod in a rhinestone jumpsuit belting out “Blue Suede Shoes” like it was karaoke night at the Dog & Duck. The audience is thankfully spared that but in its place is an onslaught of overcooked nostalgia between loud pre-recorded servings of his classics.

Rather than go for the promised Abba Voyage-style hologram, Layered Reality have opted to have the King take care of business via massive screens either side of the stage and at the back. Three musicians - two holding guitars and one playfully smacking a guitar case with drum sticks - accompany images of Presley and his initial set of songs. 

The original broadcast took four hours to tape and was edited down to fifty minutes whereas here we get considerably less face time with Elvis, even with a detour to a Madison Square Gardens show thrown in. When not checking into Heartbreak Hotel or trying to get us All Shook Up, The King whizzes through costume changes, appearing all in white, swishing his signature cape, as well as dancing around in the eye-catching black leather suit designed by Bill Belew. 

Interspersed, we have vox pops from the great, the good and Elton John telling us just how important Elvis was to them, their careers and presumably their bank balances as well as a re-enactment from Bell of the moment when he hears about his friend’s death via his radio. The mix of music, theatre and documentary revolves around the showman and celebrity side of Presley and ends up burying any sense of his personal side in mawkish cliche and well-covered ground.

So does Elvis Evolution live up to its immersive label? Not particularly. It jerks us around in time and space without ever really transporting us to a particular point with great effectiveness. Whereas War Of The Worlds pulls us along on a linear narrative featuring genuinely scary scenarios, this never reaches any emotional heights and the back-and-forth nature ends up feeling like an entire season of Doctor Who squashed into two hours.

When it does stop to showcase just how the King got his crown, it’s only for a short while. Every elephant in the room - even ones that have had entire books dedicated to them - is given a very wide berth to leave us with a history journey verging on the sycophantic. Other than maybe in technical terms, there is no sense that this is an evolution of what has come before either for Elvis or this burgeoning art form. 

Elvis Evolution continues at Immerse LDN.