The BBC Earth Experience
We all know the TV shows but can the Beeb do immersive?
Take an old BBC show, a national icon and a few hundred projectors, inject some commercial nous and lo! BBC Earth Experience has landed. World class natural history footage on big screens. What could possibly go wrong?
Ah, the irony of a nature show surrounded by a sea of concrete. But don’t worry! The Daikin Centre (they do eco-heating, apparently) is fully de-mountable. A tastefully tiled esplanade is flanked by food trucks waiting patiently for punters. It’s the Easter Hols. Where is everybody?
First impressions — it’s total chaos. Noisy, jaunty and choppy, a mash-up of different storylines in different environments at different scales. Screens tower and veer at perilous angles. Tiny figures are dwarfed by giant birds. A cheetah is galloping.
After 30 minutes I’m getting the hang of it. The blurb: “there are different storylines to enjoy, depending on where you’re standing.” We mosey. It’s one of the more relaxed immersive shows, no stress about doing things ‘right’.
There are some very well executed elements if you can look past the eye-watering £32.50 ticket price.
(#1) The “Vista Stage” uses clever curved-screen tech and aerial footage to sweep you over waterfalls, through forests and up the slopes of a fiery volcano. Gorgeous and impressive.
(#2) Dramatic moments! Three grandmas sit unruffled whilst a tornado tears across the screens behind them; fireflies shimmer and glow; penguins EVERYWHERE!
(#3) The spatial design is simple but effective: large open spaces, smaller nooks and a balcony area with step and lift access for a different vantage point. Each has a different feel and it all flows very well.
Is it interactive? There are two side rooms with interactive elements. One room has bioluminescence and bubbles, two classic Kinect-style, body-gesture art walls. Beautiful but underwhelming.
Room 2 is neat: big red button (nice) must be held down to play the film (nice!) but the resulting creepy crawlies are confined to a screen. Shouldn’t they crawl up the walls and along the floor? A missed opportunity, perhaps.
The audio is fabulous. Technically great — high definition surround sound — and creatively effective, making a virtue of sound bleed. The orchestral score, narration and diverse sounds of nature blend together in harmony.
The big complaint: constant swivel-necking! I want to look at everything so I watch nothing. The backbone of the user experience is reassuring (seven continents and seven short sections that loop) but each sequence is a whirlwind.
Yes, there are story-like vignettes — badger preys on prairie dog, polar bear eats dolphin — but in this context you miss all the powerful emotional beats made possible in a TV series. This is spectacle with little storytelling oomph.
Who made it? The BBC’s naughty commercial arm, BBC Studios! I love the BBC and support this sort of speculative venture. 2021/22 revenues of £1.9bn show they’re getting something right, important with an increasingly hostile Government, but £30+ per person is a flawed strategy.
Aside from the BBC’s source material, you have Moon Eye Productions pulling strings, Live Nation’s event know-how and Tinker Imagineers, a Dutch firm with lots of museum experience, doing the nitty-gritty media work.
Reviews are currently still in the hype phase — “We went to London’s newest attraction — and our jaws, quite genuinely, dropped” from The Telegraph. Time Out: “The Attenborough supremacy continues…[a] seismic difference between this and your puny telly.”
What are the people saying? Typical refrains range from “It’s just a bunch of Giant screens” and “£250 for 8 of us…Disappointing…not immersive at all” to many in this vein: “A unique experience with wonderful scenes.”
2.5/5 on TripAdvisor is fairly damning, though.
The problem with all this shiny technology is that it creates distance. I do not feel connected to the natural world. I watch it from afar in awe, not as an empowered agent of change.
The experience ends in a small dark space with a beautifully rendered earth floating amidst stars. For some reason Sir David’s usual schtick doesn’t quite stick: we must act now. It’s a rather timid sign-off to such a rambunctious show.
The show is a celebration more than a rallying cry; it is beauty over action. While it is expertly realised, it is not worth the money and I’m not sure it will have the sort of impact Attenborough clearly craves.
What did you think of it?
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