Last week I was invited to the opening night of The Owls Are Not What They Seem, and what an experience it was.
I’ll start off by saying I’m a fan of Twin Peaks – I watched the show each week when it first aired, I read Laura Palmers Secret Diary, I saw the film, and I’m looking forward to the show coming back in 2017, so when I was invited to The Owls Are Not What They Seem, I jumped at the chance.
The secret location is someone in Central London, so it’s fairly easy to get to – I won’t say where it is, but its near tube and train stations, and various bus routes, so don’t worry about getting there or home afterwards.
I’m not going to spoil anything in this article, so don’t worry – I wouldn’t want to have a visit from Agent Cooper, would I?
When you first walk in you are given details on your character for the evening and asked to wear a sticker showing your fellow diners, and the towns people who you are. For that night, I was “The Friendly Gardener” Each character has a special mission for the evening, that they can chose to undertake – don’t worry if you don’t want to, you will still have plenty to do.
After you have your character, you are introduced to Deputy Andy, who just like his character on the show is making a bit of a mess of everything. You then head off into the diner for your first cup of damn fine coffee whilst you wait for your fellow diners to arrive. But it’s not a case of just sitting around waiting – there are some recognisable characters in the diner, such as The Log Lady and a few others. Over in the corner by the jukebox, Audrey stands around slowly dancing and chewing on a cherry stem. You straight away feel you are part of the show.
Now one thing I need to point out, for copyright reasons some of the names of the characters and places have been changed slightly. This doesn’t really affect your enjoyment though, but it does take a little getting used, especially if you are a big fan of the show, but it is obvious who the characters are and where the places are. Agent Cooper is still Agent Cooper though!
Throughout the evening you are brought food and drink, but you don’t have to stay at your table, in fact you will miss out on a lot if you do. One thing I really liked was that you had to go an find certain areas yourself, you were not guided everyone, which made it very interesting.
Because I don’t want to spoil the evening for anyone thinking of going, I will say only this – you are in for an immersive and enjoyable experience, with lots of places to explore, secrets to uncover and people to talk to, and I loved every minute of it.
It was a damn fine experience and I recommend it to any Twin Peaks fan, but hurry, you can only visit until October 17th.
Tickets for ‘The Owls Are Not What They Seem’ are available now, priced £65. You can also just visit the themed bar for £5. You can buy your tickets from the Owls website.
