It's show time in Blackpool as new museum of entertainment opens
First look inside Showtown in Blackpool, affordable art exhibition at dot-art in Liverpool, Memory Stone at The Lowry, plans for Hilbre Island
The first impression of Blackpool’s brand spanking new museum of entertainment is an overwhelming sensation of the sort you experience at a fairground. Gaudy signs vie for your attention, massive sticks of rock trick your sense of perspective and sounds barge in from all sides. Is that an animated seagull shouting at us? Yes it is.
But while Showtown has borrowed all the frippery and craftiness of a sideshow act, like an end of the pier magic trick there is much substance behind the artifice. It is absolutely packed with exhibits - the switch used every year to turn on the illuminations (complete with the lobster claw used by Tim Burton in 2015), the clown costume worn by James Stewart in The Greatest Show on Earth, the door of the Blackpool jail cell that Houdini escaped from in 1905, Orville the nappy-wearing duck.
And utterly central to the displays are the stories and memories of the people behind the objects: The magicians, singers, clowns, dancers, circus performers and illuminations designers whose energy and creativity helped turn Blackpool into the “Las Vegas of the North” - as well as the residents who laughed at the comedians, exclaimed at the card tricks, bought ice cream at the seaside and visited the joke shops for a whoopy cushion or pack of burping powder to take a tiny piece of the fun home to their everyday lives.
Kerry Vasiliou, Showtown’s learning and development manager, says: “We spent a lot of years building up trust with different pockets of communities, which was a really interesting process. It took a long time, it took a lot of eating cake and drinking tea with people and finding out what story they wanted to tell about Blackpool.
“The magic community is obviously quite suspicious of outsiders because they don’t want their secrets to be told. The circus community is basically a family and it’s passed down through generations of family members. They have their own language, so we had to develop an understanding of their vocabulary.
“We had to work hard to build up trust and help them understand that we’d take their story and tell it with integrity, and also that if we don’t collect these stories and objects then they’re going to disappear.”
Memories mingle with information panels on the walls and display cases, including those of Mark Raffles, a magician and pickpocket who has appeared in 16 Blackpool theatres, and Northern Soul dancer Laura West, who recalls kicking her leg to her head while around her people did box jumps and flips.
Every day, a team of performers will juggle, perform magic tricks and otherwise entertain visitors, bringing movement and noise to a museum already packed with interactivity. You can create your own show bill, design your own illuminations, take a selfie in a photo booth that appears on a giant animated screen, try out ventriloquism, rate performers with a clapometer, inflate a whoopy cushion and gurn through a seaside head-in-a-hole video of dances through the ages.
Jill Carruthers, Showtown’s exhibitions manager, says: “Our market research showed that the visitors and residents who come to Blackpool are not traditional museum goers. If anything, the word ‘museum’ puts them off.
“We wanted to be authentic and have those genuine objects and stories but at the same time be inviting to people who would be put off by the fact that we were a museum - and that was how we came up the idea of creating a behind-the-scenes feel.”
Showtown is divided into six gallery spaces with the themes of Seaside, Magic, Circus, Illuminations, Shows and Dance. As well as Blackpool Council’s own collections, it features 27 loaned objects from the V&A (including James Stewart’s clown costume) and items borrowed from performers. The display boards were written by a radio and TV scriptwriter, which explains the accessible but non-patronising tone that can be understood and enjoyed by all ages.
Tickets are valid for 12 months, which means you don’t have to take it all in at once - and can go back to double-check astonishing facts you’re not entirely sure you didn’t dream, like the revelation that clowns record their individual make-up designs by painting their faces on an egg, which is then held at the Clown Egg Register.
It’s fun, serious about silliness, colourful, exciting and a great day out - all the things that makes Blackpool, well Blackpool.
“Millions of people come here every year, it’s the biggest seaside resort in the country, so it deserves to be proud of itself. It's not going to ever be some gentrified Brighton or anything like that. It's loud, it's brash, and it should celebrate the fact that it is. It loves being fun, it loves engaging everybody,” says Jill.
“I hope that we instil pride back into the residents here in Blackpool. They should be proud of this town and celebrate its entertainment history - and be proud of the future as well and what Blackpool still has to offer.”
Tickets for Showtown cost £15 adults, £13.50 children aged four to 15, and are valid for 12 months. Other concessions available. Blackpool residents go free. Book here
We’re Also Buzzing About…
Bread and Roses: James Oppenheim’s 1912 poem about women and children striking for better wages is the inspiration for this dot-art exhibition, opening next month. Showcasing affordable art by more than 20 of dot-art’s members, it includes still-lifes, cyanotypes, abstract paintings, lithographs and charcoal paintings, all priced under £200 with limited editions under £100. It’s at 14 Queen Avenue, Liverpool city centre, from April 5 to May 25.
Memory Stone: Artist and filmmaker Nikta Mohammadi, who is originally from Tehran and now based in West Yorkshire, presents her first institutional solo exhibition. Memory Stone transforms The Lowry’s gallery space into an alternate version of Northern landscape, combining elements of Sci-fi and Iranian mythology to reflects on her own and other migrants’ psychological and physical relationship with land and place. It runs from March 23 to May 5. More details.
Hilbre Island: Fog Cottage and Telegraph House on the Wirral island is being renovated by the Hilbre Community Land Trust, which is made up of community organisations including the British Art and Design Association, Friends of Hilbre Island and the Hilbre Bird Observatory. More to be revealed soon but it sounds exciting.
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Thank you for reading this week’s Stored Honey. I’m off to plan my next visit to Showtown. The gift shop wasn’t open when I went and I’m told there’s a section of joke shop-style pranks. Enjoy today’s almost-spring weather and if you want to chat about an exhibition, theatre show or anything else, get in touch on X/Twitter, in the comments or you by dropping me a line at tostoredhoney@gmail.com.
Have a great week,
Laura
