‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Gets Meta Pop-Up Stores in the UK

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has been available for almost two weeks now, but that’s not stopping Netflix from taking the marketing for the platform’s complex “Choose Your Own Adventure” style interactive film to the next level — a very meta level at that.

Over on social media, fans in the United Kingdom have started documenting the appearance of pop-up shops — specifically in Birmingham and London — designed to look just like the store that Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) visits in the film to purchase music his idol, famous game developer Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) suggests for him.

The shops are themselves something of a treasure trove of Easter Eggs for the Black Mirror franchise. Designed to look like a 1980s-vintage newsagent/video store, these “Tucker’s Newsagent & Games” shops feature “Black Mirror” comic books for “White Bear”, “Nosedive”, and “USS Callister” — all episodes of the Black Mirror anthology series. There are also posters and video tapes for episodes as well, such as “Fifteen Million Merits” and “San Junipero”.

As for Easter Eggs for Bandersnatch itself, the shops aren’t lacking there, either. There are poster displays for “Metl Hedd”, “Nohzdyve”, and “Bandersnatch” as well as a poster encouraging those interesting in designing games to apply at Tuckersoft — though if you look carefully, that poster directs people to a website, something very unlikely in 1984. There’s even an actual display of a Tuckersoft game in action, however with all of these cool things there is one major catch: the pop-up stores aren’t actually open to the public, meaning fans won’t get to choose their own adventures there in real life.

Considering how expansive Bandersnatch is, that might not be a bad thing. The standalone Black Mirror movie’s format lends itself to a reported one trillion plus unique versions of the story as viewers are prompted to make a large number of choices — including some seemingly mundane ones such as what breakfast cereal to eat — as the movie plays. While there likely aren’t that many interesting choices within the pop-up shops, it’s not impossible that there are far more interesting Easter Eggs beyond the bigger ones fans can see standing at the windows and looking in.

Of course, standing at the windows and looking in has been quite a bit of fun for those lucky enough to see the faux pop-up shops in person. Many have taken to social media to document their experience complete with photos that we can’t help poring over looking for more secrets to the Netflix film, especially since even the film’s director can’t access every scene.

“There are scenes that some people just will never see, and we had to make sure that we were OK with that,” director David Slade told The Hollywood Reporter. “We actually shot a scene that we can’t access.”

Have you immersed yourself in the world of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch? Let us know in the comments below and read on for a look at the pop-up shop promotions appearing in the UK.

Loving it.

Check out the comics!

Time travelling to the ’80s!

But now we have to think about poor Stefan.

OBSESSED.

It is definitely pretty cool.

Rating: 5 out of 5