“a charmingly chaotic chimera of styles; as if Lewis Carroll had been aboard the Dr Who scriptwriting team”
The first, and most important, rule is: “You must keep all you see inside our worlds a secret”. Which kind of lets me off the hook. It gives me license to end the review here and take my coffee into the garden to enjoy the sunshine. It wouldn’t make my editor happy. But nor me, come to think of it. This is one of those events that leave you aching to tell everybody about.
Somewhere in Hoxton, Gingerline, the acclaimed group of dining adventurers, embark on another of their immersive dining experiences. The nomadic theatrical supper club, previously popping up in various secret locations along the East London Line (The ‘ginger’ line on the Tube map) specialise in surprise. I was lucky enough to journey on their ‘Grand Expedition’ back in February – but even that familiarity doesn’t prepare you for the next course.
So, what can I say about this palette twisting, interactive, multi-dimensional dining adventure? There are five chambers (as the title suggests) which represent five different dimensions. These are not so much dimensions as alcoves of the imagination. Recesses that you didn’t know existed, or you’d forgotten were there all along. Chambers, in fact, full of all those colourful thoughts, ideas and perceptions you thought you’d grown out of. And to match this, a cacophony of flavours is served up to tease and then satisfy the palate.
We are told to leave our belongings in the cloakroom before entering this alien world. It is a good idea, too, to leave your mind. Oh – and your expectations, preconceptions, rationality, common sense and reason. You do get your belongings back when you leave. As for the rest – that’s up to you. But what you do take away is a lasting memory of a very different and exhilarating night out. I can’t really tell you more. And you shouldn’t try to find out either.
The experience has a style all of its own. Or rather, it is a charmingly chaotic chimera of styles; as if Lewis Carroll had been aboard the Dr Who scriptwriting team, or Christmas and Easter had a baby. The latter was one of the hosts’ observations – so don’t ask me to explain that particular metaphor. Which is the crux of the evening. It defies explanation. It rejects categorisation, disobeys the rules of entertainment and abandons dining etiquette. All in all, an irresistible recipe.
“a magical journey; a feast, a banquet, a dance, a cartoon, a flight of fantasy”
“It is commonly known, in the society of aeronauts, astrologers, dreamers and all who divine such things, that every half-a-century the spirits of the air, summon the fearless to a Grand Expedition. Adventurers and travellers are called to venture; to go forth, forage and feast.”
And so Gingerline, the acclaimed group of dining adventurers, embark on another of their immersive dining experiences. The nomadic theatrical supper club, previously popping up in various secret locations along the East London Line (The ‘ginger’ line on the Tube map), have now shifted onto the Victoria Line. That’s pretty much all I can tell you. The rest you simply must find out for yourself. Be brave, be fearless, and indulge yourself on their absurdist, illusory adventure like no other.
You meet in a clandestine dining room, surrounded by masked dancers, and taken on a journey. On a journey beneath the skin, yet outside of your imagination; along the way tasting the finest food from wherever your hosts take you. You travel North, South, East, West, and another dimension altogether in what they call a “floating, feeding and falling dream”. This is no false claim. Multimedia and multisensory, all your senses are embraced.
Theatre, dance, animation, music and storybook shift before your eyes, fusing and vanishing as you dine with strangers who become friends. If you let yourself, you are transported back to a time that most of us have now forgotten; to when life was a mystery. Before you knew the word; before you learned to think the thought. When astonishment was as natural as breathing. It is no great mystery, though, to learn that tickets for this grand expedition are hard to come by. It is sold out, but extra tickets are intermittently released.
Although my lips are sealed, perhaps I am allowed to tease, with a few morsels of what can be expected. Five extraordinary mouth-watering courses are dished up matching the five extraordinary realities, or unrealities, as you journey through your pop-up storybook, living in animation. You roll with it, letting yourself be taken wherever the wind blows. You won’t know where you’re going, and, like I said, I’m not about to tell you. The destination might not necessarily be a place. But a taste – a new way of seeing things. You might lose sight of the shore. Cross the oceans. Cross space, and time itself. You might travel back in time; to the analogue world of bed-time stories, the tales they tell and the dreams they create.
“The Grand Expedition” is a magical journey; a feast, a banquet, a dance, a cartoon, a flight of fantasy. Where you are the guest and the star. Forget what you’ve learned. About dining. About theatre. ‘Gingerline’ tear up the rule books and serve up something entirely different. A dinner party out of this world. Unforgettable.
