Underworld invites viewers to explore the subterranean labyrinth of London’s Victorian sewers that lie active, deep beneath the city. Guided by urban explorer and geographer Bradley Garrett, the experience begins in one of London’s lost waterways, the old river Fleet, and continues through the blood sewers under Smithfield meat market and down to the floodgates of the River Thames.
During the experience, historian Richard Barnett explains how the Great Stink in 1858 motivated parliament to embark on a major engineering project to build and modernise London’s sewer system, thus ending the capital’s cholera crisis. At a fork in the tunnels, viewers can choose their own pathway - one takes them on a journey with Will Self to explore the mythological allure of the underworld as a place for the dead and another features the story of the ‘flushers’ - the people who work in the sewers.
The project has been created by the Guardian’s in-house VR team and The Mill. It is the first in a series of six editorially independent virtual reality films which the Guardian will launch on Daydream over the course of the next 18 months.
The team will also produce a series of six 360 degree videos which will be widely available across multiple platforms from launch. A new interactive Daydream film and 360 video will be released every quarter. The Guardian’s first virtual reality project 6x9 - a virtual experience of solitary confinement, which was released earlier this year, will also be available on Daydream.
Francesca Panetta, executive editor, virtual reality, Guardian News & Media said: “With Underworld, we’ve created an experience that puts the viewer in charge of their own journey - allowing them to explore the hidden labyrinth of Victorian sewers beneath London that they didn’t even know existed. The creation of Underworld, along with our new in-house VR team, cement the Guardian’s commitment to digital innovation in journalism and working with emerging technologies to create immersive and impactful storytelling.”
