The Moonwalkers: A Journey With Tom Hanks is a new immersive experience at The Lightroom in Kings Cross in London. Running until 9 June 2024, the City Adventurers were lucky enough to visit it in February 2024.
The show tells the stories of the Apollo missions, reflecting their gripping journeys at spectacular scale. Newly filmed interviews between Hanks and astronauts of the current Artemis programme will grant an insight into the return of crewed surface missions to the moon.The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks (lightroom.uk)
Review
Venue
The Lightroom is situated at Coal Drops Yard, a short walk from Kings Cross station, so is easy to reach by public transport. The large building can be found at the end of Coal Drops Yard, where towards the principal green space at Kings Cross, Lewis Cubitt Park. On the ground floor is a large bar area.
Having collected our tickets, we made our way down stairs to the small gift shop and Lightroom experience entrance.
This is also where the toilets are situated, although the website notes an accessible toilet is available on each level and that there is lift access throughout the building. The gender-neutral toilets are arranged in a semicircular shape with entrances at each end. A surprise when you walk in one door and find yourself facing a companion who entered by the other door.
We deposited coats and bags in the free cloakroom. We also deposited our bottled water, but later noticed that some visitors had brought in their drinks from the bar in disposable glasses.
Show
The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks is shown as individual screenings, about 50 minutes long. It runs once an hour and entry is timed. Although most people leave after the show, you are free to stay and see it again.
At our appointed time we made our way into the auditorium. Like the BBC Earth Experience, this immersive experience has enormous screens and a few bench seats dotted around the room. Unlike the BBC Earth Experience, the room is not broken up into different areas and the audience stay in one place to watch. Being free to choose where to sit, we chose a bench half way across the room so we could see the front screen and also the side walls. The show is actually projected onto all 4 walls of the show space, with occasional projection on the floor.
As well as the narration, there are captions located at the top of the projection. The photography is spectacular. Coupled with the audio, it evokes a range of emotion, especially during take-off, that watching on a small TV cannot.
The Moon Missions
The Moonwalkers tells the story of humankind’s past and future voyages to the moon. Tom Hanks co-wrote and narrates the experience. He brings a personal touch to the history of the Apollo missions, reminiscing about watching the moon shots as a boy. The excitement of being a child when man first went to the moon, and his hopes and expectations for the future, are palpable and reflect how I felt at the time.
The story continues beyond the Apollo missions, to the astronauts of tomorrow and the planned Artemis moon missions. Artemis 2, scheduled for 2025, will be a 4-person lunar flyby. The first crewed lunar landing since December 1972 will be Artemis 3 in 2026. And while the Apollo missions put 12 men on the moon, the Artemis moon missions plan to put a woman on the moon.
The Artemis missions really are the next generation of moonwalkers as none of the four crew members named for Artemis 2 were born when we last walked on the moon.
Conclusion
I loved The Moonwalkers: A Journey With Tom Hanks.
As noted above, the photography is spectacular and coupled with the audio, evoked such strong emotion that I felt I needed to watch it again. For the second showing, my partner and I moved towards the back of the room to catch the bits we’d missed that had occurred behind us.
A highly recommended immersive experience, especially if you remember the excitement of the Apollo missions with affection.
Tickets are available from https://lightroom.uk/whats-on/the-moonwalkers/
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