Sooner or later, we needed to do a show about film. 

With its potential for scale, resource intensiveness, and power to transfix the viewer, film is in many ways the ultimate creative business. 

Fabien Riggall is the founder of Secret Cinema, a London-based immersive theatrical experience that puts the audience at the heart of the story. He is the inventor of a hybrid genre between film and theater, creating inhabitable cinematic worlds in which participants are both members of the scene and audience to a film screening. Under Fabien’s direction, Secret Cinema welcomed over 1.5 million guests to 60 productions from Shanghai to Los Angeles, and after 16 years was acquired in a reported $100M sale.

During this interview, Fabien walks listeners through what it’s like to attend a Secret Cinema production and the narrative devices used for immersive worldbuilding. He answers questions about scaling the business and the human desire for escapist, transportive experiences. We discuss social media addiction, UK rave culture, the allure of wild swimming, and the imperative to choose investors wisely.

We conducted this interview in London’s Somerset House, former seat of the Royal Navy Admiralty. 

Website Show notes:

• Secret Cinema: https://www.secretcinema.com/
• Once Upon a Time in America (1984) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_America
• Stanford prisoner experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
• La Haine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Haine
• Battle of Algiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers
• Black Flies / Asphalt City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphalt_City
• Johnny Mad Dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mad_Dog
• The Printworks London https://printworkslondon.co.uk/
• Guy Debord & Situationist International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International
• Everybody in the Place - An Incomplete History of Britain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thr8PUAQuag
• Adam Curtis - Hypernormalisation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr7T07WfIhM&themeRefresh=1
• Lost in London https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_London
• Love in the time of Cholera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_in_the_Time_of_Cholera
• Victoria (2015): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_(2015_film)
• Good Time (2017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Time_(film)
• Hampstead Heath - Wild Swimming: https://www.hampsteadheath.net/swimming-ponds

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