Review: Christmas at Backyard Cinema

Backyard Cinema's festive film season near London Bridge invites audiences to step into a wonderfully themed winter wonderland before screenings of Christmas classics.

Photo: Grant Walker

Christmas at Backyard Cinema is the latest festive offering from long-running 'alternative cinema experience' company Backyard Cinema. Previous events from Backyard Cinema have seen them take over spaces within venues such as Mercato Metropolitano, Winter Wonderland and Camden Market, but they're perhaps best known for their much-loved Romeo + Juliet live cinema experience, which sees Baz Luhrmann's 1996 cult classic screened alongside performances from a live choir and band.

For this Christmas season, they've taken over the ground floor of 49 Tanner Street (a venue which is also home to The Magician's Table) for a month-long residency of enhanced festive film screenings with five showings a day, running until 31st December.

As a company, Backyard Cinema has always included light immersive elements in its pre-shows, with everything from Miami Beach hotels and intergalactic starships to remote abandoned churches previously featuring in seasons of years gone by. This festive run has scaled up its immersive offerings into a fully-fledged experience in its own right. Lasting roughly one hour, Christmas at Backyard Cinema's pre-show gives guests the freedom to explore the venue at their leisure, discover hidden areas and enjoy live performances from a troupe of talented musicians and several routines from an aerialist before heading into a screening of festive favourites complemented by a flurry of indoor snow as the opening titles begin.

Photo: Grant Walker

Entering via the Christmas Cabaret Room, guests are immediately greeted by live performances from The Mistletoes (AJ Jenks, Madeline Wilshire and Matthew Kent) on a circular stage adorned with mistletoe and wrapped presents in the middle of the space. The room, while large enough to accommodate a good percentage of each screening's audience, maintains an intimate and cosy feel thanks to the cabaret-style seating and clear sightlines throughout.

The trio performs an impressive number of classic Christmas songs accompanied by acoustic guitar, piano and saxophone across the hour, skilfully covering everything from Fairytale of New York and Feliz Navidad to Driving Home for Christmas. While their opening songs have a fairly laid-back feel as people still arrive and settle in, the energy of their performance ramps up throughout, culminating in a medley of Christmas songs that has The Mistletoes doing a lap of the space with the bar staff in tow, clapping and cheering just ahead of audiences being ushered into the screening.

Thanks to strong performances across the board, the upbeat atmosphere and table service being available through the Christmas Cabaret Room, there's a case to be made for settling down and staying put for the entire pre-show, but there's far more to discover deeper inside the venue...

Photo: Grant Walker

Hiding between two fairly nondescript doors in the corners of the Christmas Cabaret Room lies The Enchanted Forest, which is home to the most 'immersive' parts of Christmas at Backyard Cinema's pre-show. After passing through a tunnel of fir trees, guests emerge into a wintry woodland-themed space. With a thick layer of bark scattered on the floor and moody, blue lighting throughout, it's the far more atmospheric and Instagrammable of the pre-show's two spaces and benefits from some excellent theming, with cherub statues and several cosy nooks hidden amongst the space's towering foliage.

In the centre of the forest sits a free-standing aerial hoop, which plays home to several impressive performances from an aerialist (Jessica Catherine/Ellen James) that see them contort and balance on the hoop as it spins, as well as routines with hula hoops on a smaller stage elsewhere in the main space.

Nestled amongst the trees that line The Enchanted Forest is also a second (much quieter) bar, a two-tier seating area with heaters that overlooks the aerialist's performance area, and a recreation of a homely, decorated living room, which hosts members of The Mistletoes for intimate solo performances.

With the pre-show's four-strong cast all working pretty flat out throughout the hour-long experience, there's rarely a moment when there isn't something going on somewhere inside the venue, but as is often the case with family-focused experiences, it's a dice roll as to whether or not the pre-show will offer enough to keep younger visitors enthralled for its duration.

Photo: Grant Walker

While there's certainly no shortage of places across the capital screening films like Home Alone, Love Actually, and The Grinch throughout December, this run of screenings at Backyard Cinema goes some way to elevating the movie-going experience into something more engaging, elaborate, and most importantly of all, more festive.

Those hoping for Backyard Cinema's festive offering to have a storyline or proper interactions between the show's performers and audience may find themselves disappointed, with the pre-show focusing purely on creating a Christmassy atmosphere. With that goal in mind, however, it achieves what it set out to do in spades and offers an experience far more festive than turning up at your local Cineworld and sitting through 30 minutes of adverts before the film even begins.

Given the kind of experiences we typically cover on Immersive Rumours, we'd love to see Backyard Cinema build upon its tried-and-tested format more in the future and create an experience with a proper narrative and deeper audience interaction, but as a light-touch, family-focused experience for the holiday season, it ticks enough boxes to make it a worthwhile visit if you're looking to enjoy a Christmas film away from the comfort of your sofa this festive season.

★★★

Guide: London's Best Immersive Christmas Experiences (2025)

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Christmas at Backyard Cinema runs until 31st December 2025 (Closed on 25th and 26th December) at 49 Tanner Street near London Bridge. Tickets are priced from £26.50 and can be booked via backyardcinema.co.uk