Review: David Bowie: You’re Not Alone (Lightroom)

Review by Daz Gale

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Artists may not be immortal, but their music certainly is. In recent years, there has been an influx of new and innovative ways to keep their legacy alive through various methods. ABBA Voyage is the most obvious example of this, becoming a staple in London as the ABBA Arena enters its fifth year and giving fans a chance to experience the music “live” more than 40 years after the group stopped touring. There’s a new experience joining it in London, with the premiere of David Bowie: You’re Not Alone at Lightroom. Ten years on from the influential icon’s passing, would it be a treat full of Sound and Vision, or would there be more Life on Mars than life in this experience?

Lightroom is still a relatively new venue in London, opening in 2023 in a revitalised part of King’s Cross, bursting with life and creativity. It is a venue I have always meant to go to, but for one reason or another, never quite made it. I knew that had to change with the announcement of David Bowie: You’re Not Alone. As a lover of Bowie’s music, I was keen to see how this experience would reflect his legacy, with the bar set ridiculously high given Bowie’s own stature and ability to push boundaries in groundbreaking fashion. As we witness the rise of more immersive experiences in London, Bowie felt like a natural fit for a Lightroom production.

So what exactly is Lightroom? Think of it as a canvas that comes alive through cutting-edge technology and projections that allow you to travel anywhere in space and time. If theatre is fantastic at providing escapism, Lightroom does it in a way like few others. Walking into the room, you are immediately immersed in a 360-degree experience, with each of the four walls around you coming to life and bursting with creativity, with even the floor joining in. If you have been to any of the historical exhibitions that pop up around London, such as Vikings, Pompeii or Cleopatra, you will have experienced something like Lightroom. Where that room is just one part of the experience, Lightroom is a single-room activity, allowing you to immerse yourself fully without the need to move on to the next room.

Written and directed by Mark Grimmer and Tom Wexler, David Bowie: You’re Not Alone runs on a continuous loop, lasting just over one hour. There is no start or finish (though you get an idea where the natural beginning would be) - instead, the film is split into chapters focusing on his art, influences and songwriting, to name but a few. The idea is to grab a seat anywhere in the room and lose yourself in Bowie’s world, though this is one experience where there is no need to stay seated, and you are encouraged to put on your red shoes and dance the blues if you so wish (though this reserved audience on a Tuesday afternoon didn’t quite do that).

It is an astounding experience full of rarely-seen interviews and never-before-exhibited material to create a 3D picture of David Bowie - the man who changed the world of music and whose influence can still be felt more than a decade after he passed. The greatest moments are undoubtedly the live performances, some iconic and some lesser known, splicing together material through multiple tours spanning the 1970s to 1990s. Spin around to the lesser-used fourth wall behind you to see what tour each performance comes from, though some rapidly whizz through multiple performances of the same song. At times, it felt like Bowie was there in the room with us, and we were all lucky enough to be in his presence. Sadly, that is no longer possible, but You’re Not Alone really felt like the next best thing.

The technology is continually impressive, with jaw-dropping and breathtakingly good visuals painting pictures of rich worlds that extend far beyond Bowie as a person. While you are in Lightroom, you can find yourself travelling with one side planted in Los Angeles, and the other in London, while another sequence takes us to a strange alien world. Though you are sitting still for over an hour, it never becomes boring, with the technical capabilities always wowing and surprising. The experience is a spectacle in itself and has been spectacularly created.

A special mention needs to go to the stunning use of lights and the continuous way the space is transformed in a show that wows in both sound and vision. Though I was sat in King’s Cross in 2026, it felt as if I had time-travelled over the course of this experience, finding myself in the Rainbow Theatre at one point, an iconic London venue that closed before I was even born. This encapsulated the value of experiences such as this, transporting people to different places in time and keeping the memories alive.

David Bowie is an artist who is unlikely to ever be forgotten, with his influence passed down through the generations and his timeless songbook surely outliving all of us. It is thanks to experiences such as You’re Not Alone that don’t just keep his music and memory alive, but do it in a way that he would most likely have approved of, finding new and creative ways to bring the music and his legend to life. This is a must for any David Bowie fan, but also for anyone who may not be familiar with his music, or was just never a fan themselves.

There is something for everyone to enjoy at Lightroom in an experience like no other that reminds you just how far technology and methods of theatre have ch-ch-ch-changed in the present day, and all the amazing ways it is possible to be immersed. The stars may look very different in Lightroom, but the creators of David Bowie: You’re Not Alone have really made the grade in a truly heroic production that goes one step further to keep the iconic singer’s memory alive in creative fashion.

David Bowie: You’re Not Alone is booking into October 2026, with tickets from lightroom.uk