The Crash of The Elysium (The Doctor Who Adventure) (Ipswich, Crown Street car park)
There’s a dilemma for the producers of The Crash of The Elysium, currently being hosted in Ipswich as part of the Ip-Art Festival. By its very nature, any show based on the Doctor Who franchise has necessarily to be non-threatening enough for young children to enjoy without being traumatised, yet adult enough not to have the grown-ups standing around feeling bored as they endure such infantile improvised dialogue as “Hands up who knows what a TARDIS is?”.
Denied the opportunity to explore the plot, it befalls the critic to look instead at production values. It has to be said that, given the cost of tickets for a family of four – with children under 13 – in the afternoon (£80), there might be a little more bang for your time-travelling buck. However, the cast throw themselves into the romp with energy, not slipping for an instant even when things don’t go entirely to plan.
The Crash of The Elysium is immersive theatre in the extreme and it is on this point that it suffers. The cast, while acting their socks off, also have to wrangle small children and their adult chaperones – many of whom have no idea what’s going on – around confined spaces in semi-darkness. Much of the action is designed to include the younger members of the “audience”, which naturally slows down the narrative. In fairness, evening performances, for those over the age of 13, apparently have added elements of tension and pace but, at £25 a ticket, you’d expect them to.
For Doctor Who aficionados some of the plot devices probably don’t bear too close examination and there’s a lingering feeling that, for the money, special effects might have been a little more… well, special. However, it’s an enjoyable enough way to spend an hour and, for the little ones, a fun way to engage with a television phenomenon that has been gracing our screen since before many of their parents were twinkles in the stardust of the Universe.
