Review: Elvis Evolution by Layered Reality

This immersive exploration of Elvis's life not only lacks the scale and ambition of previous Layered Reality experiences but tells us nothing new about the King of Rock and Roll.

Photo: Luke Dyson

Elvis Evolution, which has just launched at Immerse LDN, is the latest show from immersive producers Layered Reality. In this promenade experience, guests take on the role of last-minute audience members recruited from Bob's Burbank Diner to attend the 1968 taping of Elvis' NBC Special, which marked his return to the stage after a seven-year break, and relive his childhood and rise to fame through numerous flashbacks.

Layered Reality is best known for Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience, which is now London's longest-running immersive show, having first opened in 2019. The company built its reputation by fusing practical effects, holograms, projections and VR with elaborate, detailed immersive sets and large casts of live actors. This approach to immersive work continued with The Gunpowder Plot, which opened near the Tower of London in 2022, and shared many elements with The War of the Worlds, including extended VR sequences, dozens of detailed environments and actor-driven interactions with small groups of guests.

With Elvis Evolution, Layered Reality has set aside the VR headsets and much of the foundations laid in these previous projects, instead opting for an experience with a much larger audience size and significantly reduced immersive elements. It's a disappointing shift in the wrong direction for a company known for pushing the boundaries of tech-heavy immersive experiences, and the result is a show that feels less interactive, less engaging and ultimately less impressive than its predecessors.

Photo: Luke Dyson

Structurally, the show is a pretty radical departure from the formula that served Layered Reality so well in the past. Rather than the 15 to 20 detailed environments previously presented in Layered Reality experiences, Elvis Evolution contains just eight spaces, three of which are bars, and one is a plain white-walled corridor. Most of the experience unfolds in three spaces: an NBC Studios staff break room, a train carriage, and the sound stage where Elvis's 1968 Special was recorded. In each, the audience of 100+ remains stationary, with little to do but watch on as the story unfolds in front of them. There's also minimal interaction with the cast and no opportunity to influence or enter the story.

Occasional pre-programmed rumble from beneath the audience's seats, or gust of wind and smoke in the first half of the show provide some sensory immersion, but the show feels far closer to a traditional piece of theatre than an immersive experience - especially during the scenes in the train carraige, which has the audience sat down, watching the cast perform a whistle-stop, sanitised summary of Elvis's rise to fame against a backdrop of slicky-produced video content for 40+ minutes.

Photo: Luke Dyson

The story within Elvis Evolution is primarily told through the perspective of Sam Bell, Elvis's childhood friend from Tupelo, Mississippi. While the pair were close in their younger years, they lost contact when the Presley family moved to Memphis. Audiences first meet Sam in the NBC staff break room, where he tries to talk his way into Elvis's dressing room and is turned away. Licking his wounds, he delivers a pretty lengthy monologue about their shared childhood in Mississippi and the role music played in their youth. Later in the show, scenes show Sam hearing one of Elvis's songs for the first time on the radio, and in the show's second half, he has a conversation about Elvis in an LA bar with a stranger.

The two never saw each other again in the twenty years between Elvis leaving Mississippi and 1968, when the show is primarily set, and while his perspective is certainly a unique one, it doesn't tell us anything about the version of Elvis that millions around the world love. Because of this, the narrative of Elvis Evolution feels oddly removed from the man himself and offers little meaningful insight into his life.

There's no real-life stand-in for Elvis in the experience, and he's only seen through pre-existing archival footage and carefully shot recreations in which the actor's face is never shown. While the cast frequently talks about Elvis, he's treated by every character in the show as a mythical rock star who should be adored from afar, and not as a real person with a rich and complex history that's ripe for exploration.

Alongside the show's version of Sam Bell, Elvis Evolution features a trio of talented cast members playing supporting roles, including NBC production staff, preachers, recording studio execs and crazed fans. They all do a phenomenal job at wearing so many hats throughout the two-hour experience, and rarely have a moment's rest, but the rapid turnover of characters makes it hard for the audience to connect to any single character besides Sam, whose only connection to Elvis lies in the past, not the present.

Photo: Luke Dyson

Much of the excitement surrounding Elvis Evolution when it was first announced in January 2024 hinged on the promise of an 'AI hologram' version of Elvis, with the initial press coverage of the show (including ours) highlighting this element of the experience. While it may have been unrealistic for audiences to expect Elvis Evolution to be of the same scale as ABBA Voyage, which delivers a full 90-minute-long hologram concert, the show was said to feature a 'jaw-dropping concert experience where a life-sized digital Elvis will perform iconic moments in musical history on a UK stage for the first time'.

There's nothing of the sort within Elvis Evolution, with the only performances we see from Elvis instead being played on screens during the NBC studio scene, which follows the interval. A talented trio of musicians perform live alongside the footage, but none of them are Elvis - the person people have come to see.

Most of the footage featured in this portion of the show, besides a montage of famous faces commenting on Elvis's influence on their careers, is freely available on YouTube without the AI-enhanced upscaling that's left the show's version of 1968 Elvis looking like a moving Madame Tussauds waxwork with overly smooth skin.

Photo: Luke Dyson

While it's never been confirmed, the show's third and final delay ahead of opening, which was attributed to an 'outside vendor going into administration', is likely referencing VFX company The Mill, which closed suddenly in February of this year, and was previously confirmed to be involved in the creation of visuals for the show.

Regardless of whether or not their sudden closure prevented the inclusion of the holographic Elvis, its absence is keenly felt all the same. If it had come to fruition, this holographic version of Elvis would have turned the show's finale into something far more exciting, allowed Layered Reality to hold onto its reputation as a company that puts cutting-edge technology at the forefront of its experiences, and met the expectations of the countless lifelong Elvis fans who no doubt rushed to pick up tickets as soon as they went on sale.

As it stands, Elvis Evolution offers little in the way of immersion, tells us nothing new about the show's titular character, and lacks the energy and spectacle one would expect from a show about one of the world's best-known performers.

★★★

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Elvis Evolution runs at Immerse LDN, ExCel Centre until 28th December 2025. Tickets are priced from £68.00 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit elvisevolution.com

For more reviews of immersive experiences like Elvis Evolution, check out our recent Reviews.