National Theatre Launches VR Immersive Storytelling Studio in London

With Virtual reality fast becoming mainstream there’s huge demand for creative content showcasing the technology. VR is an entirely new medium, however, with rules of its own that need to be discovered, tested and codified before we really experience its full glory.

The National Theatre in London started pioneering VR content production in 2015 with its fabulous wonder.land experience based on the musical inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (with a distinctively modern twist).

I talked to the NT’s Head of Digital Development Toby Coffey about that project a few months ago, back when wonder.land had been selected for the first ever VR selection at Cannes. He told me that in spite of how the project had been done on a tight schedule and relatively low budget, it had received overwhelmingly positive responses from the public, with over 90,000 taking part in the experience. This was clearly a rabbit hole well worth exploring.

Which is how, on an extremely rainy British summer afternoon, I find myself in a modest room full of intriguing props and VR gear, in London’s traditionally artsy South Bank…