Elvis Evolution

First announced aeons ago and presumably costing a bob or two to create, this Elvis Presley-based immersive show is a slick affair, heartfelt in its admiration for The King. It’s by Layered Reality, who have had notable immersive successes with the ongoing adaptation of The War of the Worlds and the Tower of London-based The Gunpowder Plot.

It’s also somewhat structurally eccentric, comes with a difficult-to-defend ticket price, and – when I visited anyway – clearly suffered from its audience not being crystal clear about what it involved from the off.

The hook is Elvis’s legendary 1968 comeback TV special, wherein the man who changed music forever in the ‘50s successfully blew off the schmaltzy MOR cobwebs that had engulfed his ‘60s career and showed the world that old fire again.

But there’s quite a bit of other stuff before that. For the first half it’s essentially straight up theatre. We’re cast as audience members for the comeback special, who have been rounded up at the last minute after Elvis’s infamous manager Tom Parker failed to distribute any tickets himself (this really happened). A nervous Elvis hasn’t played live in seven years and is refusing to leave his dressing room (this also happened). And Elvis’s BFF from childhood Sam Bell has randomly turned up and offered to help talk his old pal out of his room. 

This did not happen, although Bell was a real figure. But his arrival provides a jumping-off point for the story, wherein Sam conjures a train that takes us back through time to his and Elvis’s childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi.

This would be weird in a straight play but is fine in immersive theatre, which is always one part theme park ride. It prompts a glossy, techy, reasonably informative journey through the boys’ formative years: we see how Bell (who was Black) invites Elvis (one of the few white kids in town) to come play with him, and how that leads to an inseparable friendship that gives the future rock‘n’roll icon closer proximity to the blues musicians who inspired him. Eventually Elvis moves to Memphis and some years later records a song for his mum’s birthday at the legendary Sun Studio… and the rest is history. And that is pretty much the attitude the show takes: Elvis’s peak popularity years, his stint in the army, his film career, Tom Parker… they’re all just vaguely waved at as we head to the inevitable interval bar break and re-emerge to be informed that it’s now 1968 and Elvis is regarded as yesterday’s man. 

I get why the show would take a somewhat oblique angle: Elvis’s biography is well known, and there’s only so much time. What feels jarring is that Elvis is so absent from the first half of his own show: he’s played by the child actor Alexander Bayles in filmed flashbacks, but unlike other characters there’s no live actor playing him as well.

There’s perhaps something vexing about the fact so much of the show’s budget has been ploughed into three detailed bar areas where you can spend yet more money, when we could have seen a bit more of Elvis’s life instead. 

The second half is the comeback special, and while Elvis does at last enter the building, here’s where things got a little awkward when I saw it. Herded together in front of a stage like a standing gig audience, it was clear from the crowd conversations around me that expectations were unhelpfully high. I heard more than one person specifically say they were hoping for something like the lavish ABBA Voyage concert experience. Which was clearly never going to happen: that was only possible with the enthusiastic participation of the still alive ABBA. What we get is enhanced footage from the special projected at large scale with a decent soundsystem and a trio of live musicians accompanying. 

The special was a genuinely great performance and it’s a pleasure to watch… provided you’re braced for it not being some sort of revolutionary technological marvel. But my fellow audience members had paid a minimum of £68 each, were mostly a cocktail down and certain vocal segments had clearly not particularly enjoyed the theatre section, and were hoping for something impossibly spectacular to follow. They were in the market for a little less conversation, a little more action, if you will. There was a noticeable amount of booing. A final run of songs where the live band rearranged into a harder rocking set up did seem to win the room over more or less. But unless my experience was entirely unrepresentative there needs to be some serious audience expectation management.

Elvis Evolution doesn’t deserve boos: it’s made with care and the concert is enjoyable once you accept it for what it is. I could probably forgive all its faults if the price was halved. As it is, though, I suspect a rethink may be needed if it’s to have the staying power of its subject.