We have very much enjoyed our recent visits to the V&A, not least an afternoon a few weeks ago seeing the Mary Quant and Christian Dior…
…and a couple of years ago enjoying on of the V&A’s “festival Fridays” while admiring the “Big Reveal” of new wing:
So we thought we’d enjoy this festival Friday focusing on British comedy and performance, while also taking in the new Cairo Streets display.
Ahead of time, I hadn’t thought about the irony of the V&A, perhaps the most labyrinthine of all UK museums, having a special display of photographs from the labyrinthine streets of a sprawling Middle-Eastern city such as Cairo.
But that irony was soon brought to the forefront of my mind as we tried and failed to find that Cairo Streets display. Two attempts at the information desk later (including one incident during which Janie and I also mislaid each other), the informed conclusion was that the display in question has been delayed and is not there yet. We have until April 2020 to find it, if indeed it ever shows up.
The closest to the maze of Cairo streets in the 1890s I can show you, dear reader, is some Maghrebi equivalents from the 1990s – click here or below for our photographs of Morocco:
The irony continued as we asked the kind woman at the information desk to direct us to the Laughing Matters Exhibition and she advised us to go to the third floor, pointing to a nearby staircase & lift.
After wandering what there is of the third and much of that end of the V&A’s second floor in vain, we asked a walkie-talkie-bearing attendant, who admitted to being clueless, but he could and did use his walkie-talkie to radio for help.
“First Floor”, came the garbled instruction from the walkie-talkie, “tell them to walk the British Renaissance 16th and 17th century and they can’t miss it”. We had walked that way before, of course, on previous visits. A bit too Mock Tudor for me, that 16th century section.
Anyway, we did reach Laughing Matters, which we couldn’t miss. Quite a small display, it is. I suppose there aren’t that many artefacts that can be deemed to be quintessentially British Comedy.
The Spitting Image of Mrs Thatcher was a highlight…that’s Mrs T in the display cabinet, not on the phone. Janie (on the phone) was listening to some of the many vox coms (voice of comedians) on such phones in the centre of the room. Some very interesting, many rather mundane. Also around the room were many quintessentially British comedy clips, such as “don’t tell him, Pike”, “don’t mention the war” and Babs Windsor’s bikini-boob-bursting scene from Carry On Camping. No mention of NewsRevue. Tish.
The one place in the V&A that Janie does know how to find without a map or a personal guide is the member’s cafe. That was to be our next stop.
The one performance thing we fancied was a performance piece, in the new Hochhauser auditorium, named Within The Warren, a piece which heaped irony upon irony by satirising the labyrinthine nature of the V&A’s culture. I have oft suggested that organisational cultures tend to reflect some intrinsic element of the organisation – hospitals having an “accident and emergency” style culture, children’s charities having child-like elements in the meetings, etc.
So it came as no surprise to discover, through this lightweight, absurdist piece by Jessica Mullen, that an outsider finds the V&A impenetrable as an organisation.
Even the Q&A was somewhat bewildering, as the interviewer asked a couple of obscure questions and then threw the Q&A open to the floor, to find only one question…from me. Jessica Mullen batted back an answer in such an inscrutable manner, I imagine that she’ll be head-hunted for MI6…if she isn’t in there already.
The only other thing we fancied seeing was the small display on Japanese Seibu railway poster art.
In any case, we’d not really explored the Japanese rooms before and thought we’d find the whole thing fascinating just six months after visiting Japan.
Janie especially loved the Inrō (personal effects boxes)…
…and the netsuke (kimono toggles):
After that, we both felt exhausted, so we headed home to Noddyland. It was still so early that Janie was able to photograph some ducks on the Noddyland village pond – bless.
