My night at Elvis Evolution — queues, laughter, but no burning love

Times

25-07-2025

The first sign that things might not be going well at the Elvis Evolution is literally a sign. It's a warning, right behind the ticket counter, that 'abuse will not be tolerated'. Over the next two-and-a-half very long hours, there are many more.
The Elvis-based immersive theatre experience attracted significant attention when it was announced a year and a half ago. Andrew McGuinness, its creator and a former PR executive at Freuds, promised an experience that would be 'something like Abba Voyage'.
What audiences, who have paid £75 to £300 for a ticket, discovered is something more like a YouTube video.
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On arrival at London's Excel Centre, the first thing you see is the traditional billboard of newspaper quotes. The Times described Elvis Evolution as 'the talk of the city', which is certainly true. Over the weekend, an angry pensioner had to be removed for shouting abuse during the finale and the performance was suspended.
On closer inspection, the apparent verdict from The Times in fact comes from the business pages of The Sunday Times, almost eighteen months ago. Back then, Elvis Evolution was 'the talk of the city', which is to say, the City of London, when it was revealed that Layered Reality's investors were a veritable who's who of the business world, all the way up to and including the now equally notorious Labour donor Lord Alli. In London's Docklands, there's a 100-metre superyacht parked directly outside Elvis Evolution's front door. It's very hard not to imagine them all on board, trying not to die of laughter.
The entrance area is an apparent recreation of Bob Burbank's all-American diner, where NBC television executives rushed to find a studio audience for Elvis Presley's famous comeback show in 1968, on which the event is centred. It does look like an identikit 1960s all-American diner, very much like the one you can find on almost any British high street. In fairness, Bob's has really gone the extra mile. I tried to order a cappuccino but, it being 1968, they only do two types of coffee, black or white. If 'The King' couldn't order a flat white — then neither can you.
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The crowd is 90 per cent retirees, which is not entirely unexpected at an Elvis Presley-themed attraction at 2pm on a Thursday afternoon. Quite a lot of them are wearing VIP lanyards, which confirm they've parted with at least £180 for a premium package and are doing their best to pretend to be thrilled about it. But by this point, they've read the reviews.
Quite a bit of cash has clearly been spent on two railroad car simulators that take visitors from Elvis's birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi, all the way to Memphis, Tennessee. Eventually the central partition drops and the carriages merge to form a theatre with a stage and giant screens. It's a nice idea, but one significant disadvantage is that the stage now has a column in front of it. There is not a single seat in the house that could not be described as 'severely restricted view'. Not even the £300 ones.
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Naturally, there's a lengthy interval in the Blue Hawaii bar, where VIP guests drink giant sickly blue cocktails as a slight return on their jaw-dropping outlay. It's hard to wonder whether these might not be contributing to the three further warnings about not abusing the performers.
It's also here that we get the chance to pose with the now notorious cardboard cutout of 'The King' in his underwear. I duly oblige.
The outrage only really comes at the finale. We're led into the TV studio and, after a fresh verbal warning about abuse and a firm instruction to please actually applaud when the 'applause' signs light up, the finale begins — which is to say, someone presses play on a video of Elvis's 1968 comeback show, which absolutely all the attendees have seen, many, many times before. Also, unless you've paid for the VIP treatment, you'll be ushered into the standing-room only section. A meagre £75 does not secure a seat.
There are, in fairness, three live performers in burgundy jumpsuits, dressed up like the backing band from the famous 1968 show. It's clear they've had a very long week. They look like Johnny Cash and The Tennessee Three waiting to perform at Folsom Prison and wondering if they'll make it out alive.
The finale can be most generously described as underwhelming. By the time of my visit, several days of widespread national disdain have done their job. Expectations have been managed. Rather than riots, there is mere incredulous laughter. When the performers walk off again to make way for a ten-minute documentary explaining just how much of a big deal Elvis really was, the crowd are merely shaking their heads in disdain. By this point, Elvis Illusion ticket holders already know that they're caught in a trap and, despite the extremely pedestrian nature of the show, we can't actually walk out.
When we're finally allowed out, the man in front of me dares to ask his wife what she thought. There's a long pause, and then: 'It wasn't as bad as everyone says.' That sort of praise could easily end up on the billboard. Elvis Evolution is certainly a hunk of something, but it's not burning love.