Well I managed to finally experience the new dungeons today.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!
Overview
The Tooley Street Dungeons were always a massive hit with me. The atmosphere, feel of the place, loud audio and 360 degree theming made it a fantastic experience.
The new Dungeon is poor. There is zero atmosphere throughout, poor lighting and the actors were half hearted, without any real attempts at actually scaring (or humouring) the guests. The celings were a massive let down for me - in the old dungeons (and even the Blackpool ones which are quite recent) they were all themed and at different levels. In the new dungeons, there is little or no attempt made at hiding the pipework, cables, buttons for actors to press throughout. The lighting throughout the Dungeons is also very poor - highlighting all the worst parts of them (such as the ceiling).
Breakdown of sections:
The first point of call is the new lift. The bit before it (with the cogs) is done so much better in the Blackpool dungeon! Two cogs, which highlight the horrendous ceiling is not acceptable for a £25 themed attraction.
The actual elevator was acceptable, with some nice strobe effects but you could see through gaps into a fully lit area.
Henry's Wrath Boat Ride was pretty good to be fair. A big improvement on Traitor, but still not as good as it could and should have been.
Guy Fawkes we missed most of, due to our group being huge (far too big) and us being at the back, meaning that we missed the majority of it. What we saw was OK, but again it was plagued by the obvious half arsed effort made with the theming. Small touches are nice, but they have to be accompanied with the basics like theming a ceiling! How are we supposed to feel like we are under Parliament when we are looking at a warehouse, unthemed ceiling. Poor show.
The torture chamber was awful. Far too small and lacking any sort of atmosphere, plus the actor rushed us through it in about a two minutes. Jokes that should have been funny were said in an offhand, script reading sort of way. Lazy (or unmotivated).
The Plague was okay, a few little tricks here and there but the audio wasn't nearly loud enough to create any tension.
Mrs Lovett's pie shop was a laugh, not too bad in all honesty (apart from the ceiling!) and we encountered one of two half decent actors here - the rest were rubbish. The actual Sweeney Todd section with the chairs wasn't as good. We saw the actor press the button as he left the room and it wasn't even properly dark.
Jack The Ripper lacked the fear and awesome tension that was created in the Tooley Street dungeon. Audio was nowhere near loud enough, even the jumpy moments were toned down and quiet. Jack also appears for much too long now - it was better when it was only for a second.
The Judge was also a half hearted effort on the actor's behalf. Also, theming was very sparse in this area compared to the old Dungeon. (Why not just move the old theming?)
Drop Dead was surprisingly good, didn't make sense but at least it was fun.
Overall we were very disappointed by the new dungeons. Bits looked half done, actors were not up to standard, our group was too big and there was no atmosphere whatsoever (something which is vital in places like this). Very disappointing considering that the Tooley Street dungeon was one of the best Dungeons - I'd rate the Blackpool one above this definitely (as they have actually bothered with that one). The ceilings are all the same height - whereas before they were raised or lowered depending on which scene we were in. It hasn't been thought through at all here, just done quickly and cheaply.
Also, doing away with the old props was one of the worst mistakes ever. The age of some of them added to the atmosphere, everything here looks too new and it's not immersive. I wasn't looking for faults either - the ceilings were so low that they were visible at eye height!
Overall rating: 4.5/10
