Tell no one. That’s their motto at Secret Cinema. Tell no one. And rightly so, for the interactive cinematic experience is unlike any other.

At a prearranged spot in the fields of Alexandra Palace we met, perhaps a hundred of us, dressed in our Bedouin robes and head-dresses flapping in the breeze of a London autumn. As we walked towards the Palace, our numbers swelling by the minute, hawkers and traders, musicians and goatherds, beggars, camel-merchants and noble Arab horsemen alike met us along the way – some to talk, some to jeer, some to sing and laugh, some to incite but all to entertain.

In time, our Bedouin hoard now innumerable, we were herded by chanting warriors on horseback up and into the Palace proper. There rows of desks laden with typewriters and xenophobic British army secretaries led to an officers mess where we, the foreign mass, were processed before being led through to a tangled web of rich, bustling Morrocan-style souks.

In the Great Hall of Alexandra Palace the thousand-odd faux-Arabs slowly pitched our blankets and cushions in preparation. We took up drinks from the bar and falafel and tajine from the balcony beyond. And several hours after arriving we settled in to David Lean’s 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia. All glorious, buttock-numbing 228 minutes of it (plus interval).

Tell no one, they say. Tell no one. Just remember to bring a cushion and a pinch of patience.