NME caught a first look and spoke to the team behind the epic, immersive new experience
Ahead of the public opening of the new, immersive David Bowie: You’re Not Alone experience at London’s Lightroom, NME headed in for an early special preview and to chat to the team behind it.
Containing a mixture of rarely seen and never-before-exhibited material selected from thousands of hours of film from the David Bowie Archive, combined with photography, drawings, lyrics, personal notes and audio recordings, with the film structured in thematic chapters in a looping presentation.
“Where we were in the suburbs, it was just this great slab of concrete with 9-5 commuterism and absolutely no future apart from this bleak, almost Orwellian world and grey apartment blocks,” says Bowie in a voiceover near the start of the experience, looking back on his childhood in South London. “There just seemed no way out. We just opted for some kind of colour and exhilaration in our lives. Many of us just grabbed whatever was available and said, ‘That’s my way out’.”
Music legend David died in January 2016 aged 69, just two days after he released his final album Blackstar.
What follows is an hour-long odyssey of sound and vision, bringing Bowie’s journey and imagination to life as told through his influences as a culture vulture and how he mapped them into a world of his own on stage, through his art, and via music – capturing the zeitgeist while usually on the outskirts of mainstream culture. It vividly captures the human side of the icon, as well as showing his creative journey from Brixton to ‘Blackstar’ through the tensions as well as cultural and historical touchstones of each decade, showing an artist forever looking to future. _ Read the full article on NME HERE
The exhibition "David Bowie: You're Not Alone" opens at London's Lightroom on April 22, 2026.
It includes rarely seen performance footage, photographs, drawings, lyrics, personal notes and audio recordings from Bowie’s archive.
Director Mark Grimmer received unprecedented access from the David Bowie estate to craft the show's narrative.
David Bowie's secret final project was a musical set in 18th Century London
Notes, found locked in his study, reveal plans for a show called The Spectator
He was inspired by the contrast between the era's vibrant society and notorious crime
Fans can view the original notes at the Bowie Centre in London's V&A East.
Called The Spectator, its existence was unknown to even his closest collaborators – until the notes were discovered locked in his study in 2016. They have now been donated to the V&A Museum, with the rest of Bowie's archive, as BBC reports.
Shared exclusively with the BBC, they show Bowie's fascination with the development of art and satire in 18th Century London, alongside stories of criminal gangs and the notorious thief "Honest" Jack Sheppard.
Had it been completed, the musical would have realised one of Bowie's lifelong ambitions.
Bowie was particularly fascinated by crime and punishment.
In one note, he envisaged the aftermath of a public hanging, with "surgeons fighting over corpses".
He also considered making Jack Sheppard, a petty thief who had won the public's affection, one of the main characters. He also references "thief-taker general" Jonathan Wild, a vigilante who was responsible for Sheppard's arrest and execution.
