Latest news with #TheGunpowderPlot
Time Out
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
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.
Fast Company
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
Inside ‘Elvis Evolution': AI and immersive tech bring the King's life to the stage in London
Stage fright is not a term you'd associate with Elvis Presley, but in 1968 he was all shook up—with nerves. Ahead of his make-or-break 'comeback special' after years floundering in Hollywood, the King had cold feet. He told the special's director, Steve Binder, he was 'terrified,' adding, 'I don't know if I can do this . . . just me and a guitar in front of people?' He half-joked to his entourage about retreating to Hawaii. Apart from a few close confidants, no one has ever witnessed these intimate moments of reservation. But starting July 17 in London, guests at Elvis Evolution will see an AI -generated Elvis play out these fears, and other key moments of his life. The immersive event will be powered by various types of tech, but the creators want to ensure that none of them get in the way of the magic of being transported back in time. Layered Reality puts on experiential events comprising three 'layers': tech, theater, and physical elements. The tech is multifaceted, from augmented reality to 3D audio effects; the theater comprises traditional sets and live actors; the physical elements are sensory stimulants like touch and taste. 'That's a really intoxicating combination,' says founder and CEO Andrew McGuinness. 'Often they're kept in separate worlds. We firmly believe they belong together.' The company has deployed this mix of elements for Londoners three times before, including in retellings of War of the Worlds, and The Gunpowder Plot, hosted in the eerie vaults below the Tower of London. The new endeavor is far from a 17th-century plot against a king—though, this one also has a king, or rather, the King. Back in time with theater and tech Guests will be escorted through a story-based experience of Presley's life, from a young boy, through the rebellious leg shakes of the '50s, through the opulent Vegas years, all on purpose-built sets at Immerse LDN, a new immersive entertainment complex on the River Thames waterfront. Groups will walk through scenes like a '50s diner and a dressing room. At times, walls and sets will move around them. They'll take on different points of view. 'You are literally going to walk in his shoes at one point,' says Simon Reveley, head of studios, not indicating if those shoes are blue suede. Different scenes will employ different tech tactics. 'We are very deliberately technology agnostic,' McGuinness says, stressing that tech is simply a 'tool' to enhance the experience. 'When it's at its best, the technology gets out of the way.' In past Layered Reality shows, tech ranged from subtle to sensory: in one scene in The Gunpowder Plot, for example, guests hide in pitch dark from priest hunters, with spatial audio and LED floor lights simulating creeping footsteps; in another, a VR-enhanced boat ride layers motion effects with water sprays, cool air, and the salty scent of the sea—blending physical cues with digital immersion to trick the brain into believing the experience. For Elvis, they don't want to give away too much to ruin the element of surprise. Of course, music will be central. Through it all, artificial intelligence helps to remaster sounds, and upscale footage quality. 'AI Elvis' But AI's starring role is in 'AI Elvis' himself. Guests will come face to face with the recreation of Presley. Layered Reality trained the AI on hours and hours of footage, feeding an algorithm concert clips, Cine 8 films, and thousands of photos. AI Elvis has been done before in 2022, on America's Got Talent. An actor served as Elvis' deepfake double, creating movements to make it look as if Presley were performing 'Devil in Disguise' (with a deepfake Simon Cowell). Reveley explains that with more advanced facial generative AI, you can now tune the algorithm to lean more into the original source material than the human actor. AI can pick up on minute nuances, vital for someone whose expressions, like the lip curl, were so iconic. 'We all know them so well, and so does the machine learning algorithm,' Reveley says. Much of the purpose of AI Elvis is to 'unearth' footage that happened but wasn't captured—like the nerves before the '68 TV special. Ethics and delays Recreating imagined scenes raises ethical questions, of whether a person no longer living would want to share their most intimate moments with the world. But the team insists its project is different from the Simon Cowell duet—or the AI Anthony Bourdain that was controversially made to narrate part of a documentary—because they aren't fabricating something that never happened. 'AI [is] being a digital archivist rather than an originator,' McGuinness says. The Presley estate is also heavily involved, and granted the team access to all the footage. (The Presley estate did not respond to Fast Company To create AI Elvis, Layered Reality partnered with the Mill, a visual effects agency that won an Oscar for bringing Oliver Reed back to life in Gladiator. The Mill was a subsidiary of the postproduction giant Technicolor Group, which since 1915 set the industry standard for color entertainment. But in February, after years of financial struggles, Technicolor went bust. (Fast Company reached out to the Mill to confirm it was also affected, but didn't hear back.) That caused delays; though Layered Reality had ownership of AI Elvis, it had work to finish. They scrambled to hire artists from The Mill on contract to complete the final phases. They pushed back the start date twice, from the original planned date of March. A post-pandemic events boom It's now on course to welcome guests, to experience what McGuinness views as part of a 'live entertainment revolution.' It views its competitors not as other tech or AI companies, but anything else you could be doing that night, from a musical, to mini golf, to 'that Italian restaurant on the corner of your street [where] you'll end up spending 130 pounds.' Given that comparison, McGuinness thinks 75 pounds ($102) for a standard ticket is fair. 'We're in the memory business, [and] too much of our money is still spent on immemorable things,' he says. The business banks on a rising demand for these types of events. The term 'experience economy' has existed since 1998, when it appeared in Harvard Business Review, but COVID-19 accelerated the allure, boosting the popularity of experiences like Cosm in Los Angeles and the Sphere in Las Vegas. With that backdrop, Elvis Evolution hopes it can usher in a modern-day comeback. Of course, the '68 one turned out to be a tour de force, full of raw vocals and black leather. Nerves dissipated, and gave way to humor. 'I sang to turtles and palm trees for years,' Elvis told the audience about his movie career. 'This is a lot better, don't you think?' The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
Telegraph
16-04-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Is it time to give our ancient trees the same protection as Stonehenge?
On its website alongside its menu, Toby Carvery offers customers some advice on the intricacies of cutting. In a section entitled 'A Few Words on Carving', a long sharp, serrated blade is recommended in order to make the most precise cut, as well as using the entire length of the knife. One presumes the tree contractors employed by the branch of the restaurant chain in Enfield, north London, did not pay similarly careful consideration when lopping down a 450-year-old ancient oak overlooking its car park. Instead, there has been an act of ecological vandalism which has provoked similar national outrage to 2023's felling of the Sycamore Gap tree. The loss of the Toby Carvery oak, campaigners say, is perhaps even more disastrous compared to the 150-year-old Sycamore Gap tree, due to the vast array of species which such veteran trees support. A single ancient oak can harbour up to 2,300 species, meaning that an entire ecosystem has now been chainsawed into oblivion. That, and as pointed out by the writer Robert Macfarlane, this was a tree that pre-dated the Gunpowder Plot. A 450-yo oak is felled without permission/consultation by @tobycarvery, who falsely claimed it was "dead". A tree alive when The Gunpowder Plot was hatched, which supports a web of 2000+ species, is in pieces. Legal protection for heritage trees needed. — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) April 15, 2025 But it is also a case which highlights the lack of protection currently afforded to Britain's cherished ancient trees, and raises the question whether, to ensure their survival, these totems of the landscape should now be granted the equivalent legal rights to scheduled ancient monuments such as Stonehenge. There is a bitter irony in the fact that the only 'listed' tree in the UK, meaning it is granted the same protection as heritage buildings, is already dead. The Grade-II listed stump of the Elfin Oak, which stands in Kensington Gardens, was carved with elves, fairies and woodland animals in the late 1920s by the artist Ivor Innes and is protected for its cultural value. Otherwise, unless covered by a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) granted by a local authority or growing in a designated site such as a conservation area or nature reserve, Britain's ancient trees have no legal protection at all. 'Thousands of trees being cut without permission' While the Sycamore Gap tree was felled without permission, Mitchells and Butlers (the company which owns Toby Carvery) believed it had a legal right to fell the tree as it stood on land leased from Enfield Council and was not covered with a TPO. In a statement, the firm said it commissioned 'specialist arboriculturist contractors' who advised that the tree posed a potential health and safety risk and so the decision was made to cut it down. In response, Ergin Erbil, the leader of Enfield council, said on Wednesday that he was 'outraged the leaseholder has cut down this beautiful ancient oak tree without seeking any permissions or advice from Enfield council' and the local authority would be pursuing 'appropriate legal action'. The tree has been valued at £1 million, £300,000 more than the Sycamore Gap tree. Legal experts have said the owners of the Toby Carvery could be forced to pay for the value of the tree under the Cavat (Capital Asset Value for Amenity Trees) system, if it is proven that they failed to take appropriate action before felling it. Under the current system, even existing tree preservation orders can also still be overruled. The Cubbington Pear, for example, a 250-year old specimen once voted English Tree of the Year, was felled in 2020 to make way for HS2. Meanwhile, the Darwin Oak, a 550-year-old specimen near Charles Darwin 's childhood home which was shortlisted in the 2024 Tree of the Year contest, remains under threat from a proposed Shrewsbury bypass. Despite requests from campaigners to grant a TPO, Shropshire Council says this would still not protect it from being felled under the proposed scheme. Catherine Nuttgens, an independent urban forester, says the current system creates significant grey areas which leaves ancient trees at risk. She makes the point that it would be theoretically possible to grant listed status to the wrought iron props underneath the famous Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, but not the 1,000-year-old tree itself which they are designed to protect. Often, as was apparently the case with the Toby Carvery oak, these inadequate legal protections can result in tree surgeons becoming judge, jury and executioner (a role which some are unqualified to carry out). 'Any trained arboriculturist knows about ancient trees,' says Nuttgens, who previously worked as a local authority tree officer and community forestry manager. 'Clearly whoever did this was not a tree expert, maybe a chainsaw expert instead?' Liam McGough, who runs the north London-based Liam McGough Tree Services, agrees that greater legal protections should be afforded to ancient and veteran trees. The 40-year-old trained as a tree surgeon aged 16 and later worked on the Duke of Northumberland's estate before setting up his own business. He is a professional member of The Arboricultural Association, which acknowledges best practice, and alongside his business works with local authorities advising on tree protection. The problem, he says, is that 'anybody can buy a chainsaw and call themselves a tree surgeon'. Despite established guidance on tree maintenance, there remain few legal requirements placed on those in the industry beyond basic health and safety rules. 'The term is so loosely used there are people walking around with shorts and trainers going and knocking on people's doors and asking if they want their trees cut,' says McGough. While he insists his firm will always make an application to seek approval from a specific local authority when managing any urban trees, many others in the profession do not. 'There are thousands upon thousands of trees that are being cut without permission,' McGough says. He has studied photographs of the remains of the Toby Carvery oak (whose stump is still standing after being belatedly granted a Tree Preservation Order by Enfield Council in the hope it will grow back) and says the condition of the wood demonstrates there was no need for the tree to be felled. 'It makes me angry,' he says. 'It's a huge loss to the area.' Emblems of our national identity There are in excess of 190,000 trees logged on the UK's Ancient Tree Inventory, which maps the oldest specimens in the country. As well as hosting an abundance of life, these ancient trees are also of vital cultural importance; acting as repositories of the nation's history and emblems of our national identity. In 2023, for example, a more than 1,000-year-old yew tree was felled on private land near Battle in east Sussex. The tree was located just a mile from Senlac Hill (which is regarded as the site of the Battle of Hastings) meaning it would have bore witness to the Norman invasion in 1066. It is estimated, meanwhile, that there are at least 500 churchyards in England which have yew trees older than the buildings themselves. Oak trees, in particular, represent some of our most long-lived and cherished species. After all, Britain is home to more ancient oaks than the rest of Europe combined. The trees were revered as far back as the ancient druids, while the Magna Carta was written with ink produced by the oak marble gall wasp. Among numerous venerable examples include the 1,000-year-old Queen Elizabeth Oak, which sits in the grounds of Cowdray Park in Sussex, and in whose shade Elizabeth I supposedly rested during a royal hunting party in 1591. Martin Hugi, a senior conservation adviser at the Woodland Trust, has worked as an ancient tree verifier over the past two decades. In 2023, he also undertook an 'ancient tree pilgrimage' from Land's End to John O'Groats. Using the ancient tree inventory as a guide, he walked 1,000 miles and visited 1,085 trees en route. 'From a cultural point of view, these organisms are probably the oldest entities that we will ever meet and that just deserves our respect in its own right,' he says. 'I think when a lot of people actually meet an ancient tree, then it puts them in their place.' There is perhaps slow progress in granting greater legal protections for ancient trees. Public consultation is currently being sought on a new tree protection bill in Northern Ireland which would strengthen legal rights for their like, and woodland more generally, by introducing a heritage tree designation and improving enforcement. But across the rest of Britain, no such moves are underway, meaning trees still remain under threat. The scene in the grounds of the Enfield Toby Carvery demonstrates the folly of further delay. A taped-off cordon reminiscent of a crime scene, and a stump where 450-years of history has been hacked away in an instant.
