Myths abound as to the location where the hero of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel threw his legendary parties. Was it Long Island’s fabled Beacon Towers? Or was Gatsby’s house inspired by other great Gold Coast mansions, such as Land’s End and Oheka Castle?
Now it can be revealed that Gatsby actually inhabits a former nonconformist chapel in York. Since it was first presented last year, the Guild of Misrule’s immersive Gatsby experience has developed into a cult jazz-age fancy-dress party in which it is difficult to be sure if you’re mingling with the cast or another member of the audience. In any case, non-participation is not an option: within minutes you’re required to put down your cocktail and learn how to charleston.
There’s nothing quite like getting lost in a good book, and over the next couple of hours this is pretty much what happens. Alexander Wright’s production features some scripted set-pieces, though your journey through the narrative is governed largely by chance – I spent quite a lot of time circulating the subplot, playing spin-the-bottle with the blue-collar characters Myrtle and her car-mechanic husband George, who also plays a mean stride piano.
And in a very Gatsby-esque sense, I never properly got to meet the host; though I think I may have been implicated in an underworld plot to expose him. It leaves you with a sense of having flipped through The Great Gatsby at random rather than followed it cover-to-cover, though the conviction of the acting, the quality of the music and the frenetic explosions of flapper dancing distil the spirit of the book like liquor in a prohibition-era teapot. And it’s a workable solution to the main difficulty of dramatising the novel, which is that incessant hedonism can be incredibly boring to watch. Baz Luhrmann’s overlong, overhyped film might have been a whole lot more engaging if you could have joined in. Well, now you can.
- At 41 Monkgate, York, until 7 January. Box office: 01904 623568. Then at Vault festival, London, from 25 January to 5 March.
