Families North West London
Jan/Feb 2017
Many years ago (everything is a blur), I started writing a
novel. A minor strand included a ridiculously inconceivable reality TV show called
“Bed the Celeb”, the premise of which was that a number of plebs were marooned
on a desert island with a d-list celeb and the winner was the one that did. And
then whaddya know, Celebrity Love Island was born on ITV. (I know, you are
blown away by my unparalleled prescience but where am I going with this in a
magazine about kids. Stay with me...)
An equally preposterous strand that I could have myself invented
ten years ago in the plot of a dystopian novel set in 2017 (had I got ON my
backside and actually written a whole one) is the idea of an Escape Room as an
immersive entertainment experience. Picture it: Donald Trump has been elected Governor
of Texas or somewhere (-even I would never have guessed POTUS). Spoilt kids,
addicted to little portable flat-screens, bored with reality, choose to be
locked in a room and made to solve clues, find keys and decode erm… codes in
order to escape.
Has the world gone mad?! Well, yes, it has. And have I, that
I should spend money on this for Midi-Me and her friends? Yes but only
partially, coz I got a deal on Groupon.
And before purchasing the offer, I carried out an extensive cost
vs benefit analysis on turning my entire house into a multi-layered escape
room: I could lock them in the bathroom leaving them to polish all surfaces of
congealed toothpaste and they would be released once they had figured out how
to use the electronic weighing scale that has 3 buttons, the pressing of none
of which currently makes the machine tell me how much I weigh when I stand on
it. Next, my bedroom. The task? To decipher manufacturing codes on all skin
care and make up, throw away anything more than 3 years old and arrange all
remaining items by colour with no gaps in the Muji drawers provided. Next, Midi-Me’s
bedroom. Change sheets (including hospital corners) and duvet cover, organise
bookshelf alphabetically and locate missing bank card. Et cetera around the
rest of the house.
Anyway, this wouldn’t have worked for me because it would
have required too much effort. I’m the type of person who has to pre-clean for
an hour before the cleaner arrives and she still shakes her head as she enters.
Having Midi-Me’s friends searching every dusty corner and top shelf for clues
would send me over the edge. Escape room, here, take my money.
…
Keep walking down Uxbridge Road away from Westfield and the
tube station and as you pass the newish chain restaurants and the market, you edge
closer to the less salubrious end of Shepherd’s Bush, where a drunk might (and
did) whisper in your ear as they pass you, dancing to the beat of their own
footsteps. This is the location of Escape London (escape-london.co.uk). The
girls descended the stairs behind the black door and quickly shoved their stuff
in the lockers provided. Nice Young Chap gave them safety spiel and basic
instructions before locking them in the room which is serviced by two cameras.
I sat in front of the CCTV next to Nice Young Chap, scoffing
my Lebanese pastry, sipping tea, and chortling at the incompetence of Midi-Me
and her friends rattling drawers, rummaging through papers and tapping keys on
a manual typewriter. Every time they got stuck they had to wave at the camera
and Nice Young Chap would feed them a part-answer which would appear on a
screen inside the room. I felt like Big Brother. I wanted to grab the mic and say
in my best Geordie accent “Midi-Me, you have been evicted. Please leave the
room.” But there wasn’t one. By the time they had finished, I was qualified for
a job at GCHQ. The girls escaped only with lots of help and some extra minutes.
(So much for all the verbal and non-verbal reasoning skills they supposedly acquired
during the 11-plus.)
The Da Vinci Room was tricky for these 14/ 15 year olds but
they had a blast. If you plan to go with younger children you should probably
opt for the Area 51 room and possibly go in with them (max 6 people).
Alternatively, you could always lock them in your kitchen.
On the radio Thursdays from 10am to midday on www.thepulsehr.uk
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