October 2023 Favourites

A collage of 4 photos, including a costume heavily decorated in colourful gems worn by Catherine of Aragon in Six The Musical, a metal prosthetic hand, a large sculpture in Regent's Park covered in various patterns of bright and bold colours that looks like a big piece of fabric caught in the wind, and David Tennant as the 10th Doctor standing next to Catherine Tate as companion Donna Noble.

Hello again, and welcome to my latest little roundup, at a time when I know that things are far from cheerful news-wise. The war in Israel and Gaza is horrific to say the least, and like everyone else I can only pray for peace and express my solidarity with the innocent civilians affected on all sides, just as I do for the ongoing Ukraine conflict. Then there’s the Covid Inquiry, stormy weather and other stuff. But on the plus side, the plans to close railway ticket offices have just been scrapped (for now at least), which I had a little rant about in my July post, so well done to everyone who campaigned against it.

So as always I hope my posts are a pleasant distraction from things like that. And for me this has been a pretty relaxing month really. I didn’t go to any theatre shows this time, but I did revisit a couple of my favourite museums, explored a couple of sculpture trails, and had a nice Halloween tour with my friend and colleague Emily. Plus I got my Covid booster, had a few other nice walks, and went to a retirement party (all the best Pauline if you’re reading this!), but I don’t need to write about those little bits here.

So let’s crack on with this month’s post and video, in which nothing is sponsored or gifted as usual, and I hope you enjoy!

Contents

Museums

V&A Museum

I love the Victoria & Albert Museum, so it’s hard to believe I haven’t been there since February 2020, shortly before we went into lockdown the following month.

So I’m glad I finally got around to visiting again. Granted, it’s still not the most accessible place, with its unmarked steps (a short flight of which I failed to notice and stumbled down but thankfully remained standing), and rooms that are hard to find in the rabbit warren of corridors (even using their digital map I still got lost to start with). But once I got my bearings I was fine.

The outside of the Victoria and Albert Museum, with its large entrance archway.
Close-up of sculpted figures high above the entrance on the front of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Two horses form part of a coat of arms, while further down 2 guards stand next to Queen Victoria.

On this occasion I devoted a few hours to exploring some of the galleries on the top-right corner of the second floor, breaking only to get a bit of lunch at the Garden Café downstairs.

The main purpose of my visit was to see Re:Imagining Musicals, which is open until the 4th of February next year. It celebrates the world of musical theatre, with beautiful costumes, artwork for posters and soundtrack albums, a big video screen showing snippets of several productions, and a few other bits and pieces. It covers a lot of shows, so you only get a fleeting look at each one, but that’s fine, because it’s illustrating the variety of musicals that have been made, and continue to be made, and acknowledges the hard work that goes into them.

It was lovely to see pieces from The Lion King, The Wizard Of Oz, Wicked and The Rocky Horror Show in particular, because I’ve enjoyed going to those before. The rest came from musicals I know of but haven’t seen – either because they’re not running now, or I haven’t got around to them yet, or I’m just not bothered about them – including & Juliet, Moulin Rouge, West Side Story, Cats, Hello Dolly!, Annie, Six, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Show Boat, Company, My Fair Lady, and a section on war-related musicals. So it’s a good mixture.

Costume for Scar in the Lion King, ornately decorated in red, gold and black detailing, with a large lion's head worn over the actor's face that has a tall mane of golden hair on the top.
Costume worn by Catherine of Aragon in Six the Musical, which is heavily decorated with gems and gold.
Costume worn by Elphaba the witch in Wicked, consisting of a dark green, body length dress, with layered detailing like overlapping leaves. The mannequin's face is painted green, and she has a tall pointed black hat on her head.
Costume design sketch for Frank N Further in the Rocky Horror Show at the Oldham Coliseum. Frank is wearing a skimpy blue nurse's uniform with a short skirt, overlaid with a white apron and a red belt around the waist. The sleeves of the uniform are also very short, revealing very bulbous, muscly arms. He also has fishnet stockings on his legs, and high heels on his feet.

That temporary gallery is attached to their permanent Theatre & Performance exhibition, which includes more costumes, designs and imagery, covering many different kinds of shows, not just musicals. So inevitably it contained several productions I’d never heard of, though the costumes from them were still impressive. But there were still a few I did know, including the title character and Miss Trunchbull from Matilda The Musical (which I loved when I saw it in 2017), a Stormtrooper from Star Wars and Willy Wonka from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. It was also interesting to see a selection of puppets, a heraldry jacket worn by John Entwistle from The Who, a French poster for the band Madness, and a recreation of Kylie Minogue’s dressing room from her Showgirl: Homecoming tour.

Willy Wonka costume from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. It's very bright and colourful, with a pink jacket, orange shirt with gold detailing, a blue tie with thin black stripes, green chequered trousers, and a black and white striped cane that the mannequin is resting on with its right hand.
The school uniform worn by the title character in Matilda The Musical, with a light grey jacket over a white shirt, red and white striped tie, a dark grey skirt, white socks and black shoes. She also has a light grey hat on her head.
A heraldry jacket worn by John Entwistle from the Who. It's covered in red and gold patterning, with the red sections having a black outline. There are 3 large drawings of lions faces going up the right side of the jacket, from the waist to the shoulder.
A recreation of Kylie Minogue's dressing room from her Showgirl Homecoming tour. There is a large reclining swivel chair in front of a dressing table, while there's a variety of clothes and shoes spread around the room, along with wigs, more shoes and a few small stuffed animals on top of a wide wardrobe. At the bottom right of the display is a large handwritten note that says Thanks for coming and love to you all, Kylie, X.

I then concluded my visit by having a wander through the nearby Photography Centre, which has a wide selection of images, and the Tapestry gallery, with its impressively gigantic pieces on display.

Black and white photo of Mount Vesuvius erupting, with huge plumes of smoke in the sky.
5 black and white photos showing women at work during the First World War in 1917, as they push trolleys around the large shells being produced in a huge munitions factory.
Black and white photo by showing an aerial view of thousands of cars parked in rows at the Ford Headquarters in Michigan in 1936.
Black and white photo of a man launching a home made glider.
A massive tapestry from 1430-1440 entitled Falconry. It depicts 15th-century aristocratic life, showing fashionably dressed lords and ladies hunting in the forest, with their servants alongside. They are sending falcons to catch wild duck, and the tapestry illustrates many details of medieval falconry.
A large tapestry from around 1500 to 1520 entitled Pastoral. It is a stylised country scene, where shepherds and shepherdesses are playing a game called La Main Chaude. A blindfolded player has to guess who slaps the hand he holds behind his back. Several wrong guesses would result in a 'hot hand', or 'main chaude'. The fine clothes of the players suggest that they may be courtiers only playing at rural life.
A large tapestry from around 1510 to 1520 entitled The Triumph of Death, or The Three Fates. In Greek mythology, the Fates controlled human destiny. Clotho span the thread of life, Lachesis measured its length and Atropos cut it, bringing its inevitable end. Here the Three Fates represent Death, though they appear as beautiful women. Their victim is the personification of Chastity, lying dead at their feet.
A large tapestry from around 1500 entitled Millefleurs with a Unicorn. Millefleurs means a thousand flowers, and there certainly many flowers, often on leafy stems, covering the tapestry. The small image of a unicorn in the centre represented chastity, since only a virgin might tame it, and invulnerability, as its horn was an antidote to poison.

Science Museum

This month I went back to the Science Museum for the second time this year – but not to see the Turn It Up exhibition about music that’s opened recently, as I knew it would be really busy while it was new, even more so during half term week. So I’ll try and see that at a later date, before it closes in May next year.

Instead, therefore, I checked out a couple of galleries on the first floor, which are next to the Science Fiction exhibition I visited in June, and are easy to find as they’re just up the stairs that are straight ahead of you after passing reception. This was clearly indicated on the PDF map of the museum that I got from their website, which is easier to follow than the V&A’s map as it’s a much simpler layout. More importantly, I was also able to download large print guides for the galleries I was visiting, which I’m really glad that they provide online, because it’s very helpful to be able to read or listen to them on my phone whilst looking around.

So I mainly spent my time in the Engineers gallery, which celebrates the work of experts in the fields of health, digital imaging, LED lighting, GPS, the internet, and other creative innovations. Obviously this is only scratching the surface of the countless incredible achievements that engineers have made, but it’s all pretty interesting. The exhibition is divided into 4 distinct sections, each of which includes a touch screen where you can see animated explanations of the technologies being displayed, watch videos of engineers discussing their work and why they’re so passionate about it, and read more comprehensive information. I didn’t bother reading the essays on those screens, as they were too small and lengthy and not replicated in the large print guide, but the videos were enjoyable.

A metal prosthetic hand prototype, created by engineer Peter Kyberd at the University of Southampton. The user initiates movement by thinking, activating their arm muscles, which moves the hand. Sensors on the hand identify the shape of an object and the microprocessor selects the grasp needed.
Henry Maudslay's model of the steamship Dee's paddle engine, with lots of moving metal parts.
A replica OneWeb Broadband Satellite, with 2 large solar panels at the end of long poles sticking out either side of the central satellite unit.
James Capper's Atlas Prototype. This is a large hydraulic arm, with a round drill head at the end, on a big stone pedestal. The arm is able to turn all the way around, and bend downwards enough to drill away at its own pedestal, which it has been doing for some time, leaving a wide chasm around the centre of it.

And next to that is the Technicians exhibition, which gives an insight into the work of people who ensure energy and power is delivered to our homes, make things more high-tech, create TV shows and films, and provide vital assistance with healthcare. I didn’t spend a lot of time here, as it’s actually aimed at children, with the aim of tempting them into those careers, and they were busy enjoying all the tasks and games on the interactive screens.

A large display at the start of the Technicians exhibition, featuring models of various tools and protective equipment, as well as quotes that say Our skills make a difference, we are hands-on problem solvers, and you can join us. A video screen at the bottom of the display cycles through different types of technicians, and is currently showing a museum and galleries technicians. To the left, a smaller portrait screen shows a guy in a yellow high-vis jacket doing sign language.
A large cartoon image of a smiling technician sitting in front of a console, using a joystick to control a robotic arm on a screen in order to fix an underwater pipe, as a fish looks on in confusion. The imagine is predominantly black and white, but the technician's jacket, the joystick and a few of the lights on the console are yellow.
A interactive touch screen with a welding demonstration, where the player is trying to use a welding torch on a piece of metal, and they are marked on precision and speed.
A wall showing black and white cartoon images and QR codes for many different technician careers that young people could consider joining, including civil engineering, environmental, maintenance and operations engineering, science manufacturing, telecommunications, composites, aquaculture, marine engineering, smart home, waste and recycling, cardiology, propulsion, building design, and electrical technicians.

However, I was impressed to see that it includes an audio description trail, accessed via clearly labelled QR codes. In each section a couple of people from the relevant industry talk enthusiastically about their work, describe some items that you can touch (including a safety harness for people working on wind turbines and a deconstructed PlayStation 2 console), and give clear directions to relevant items nearby as well as to the next part of the trail. The tactile objects have braille labels next to the audio description codes too, and British Sign Language is also available on the films featuring technicians. So it’s wonderful that they’ve put in the effort to make this exhibition accessible, beyond just the large print guide.

A PlayStation 2 console that has been broken down into its individual components, arranged for people to touch in an orange display case. A quote from Christopher, an engineering manufacturing technician, is shown in large white text in a space amongst the various items. He says When I was growing up, I was always taking stuff apart. I had a PlayStation that I tried to fix. I've always been more interested in figuring out how things work than the more academic stuff.
A dark grey panel with large white text that says For those who love to listen, with smaller text beneath that says Audio Description Trail, PlayStation. Below this is a QR code and the AD symbol, the latter consisting of the letters A and D together, with 3 curved lines radiating outwards to the right like sound waves. Below this is some braille text on a separate dark grey panel.
A large black safety harness used by wind turbine technicians, attached to metal bars in a yellow display case for people to touch.
A yellow panel featuring a quote in large black text from Olivia, a wind turbine technician, who says We do buddy buddy checks to make sure we have all the right safety gear and that we are safe to do our work. Below that quote, a dark grey panel has large white text that says For those who love to listen, with smaller text beneath that says Audio Description Trail, Safety harness. Below that, still in the grey panel, is a QR code and the AD symbol, the latter consisting of the letters A and D together, with 3 curved lines radiating outwards to the right like sound waves.

Old Royal Naval College

On Halloween afternoon I met up with my friend and colleague Emily from Fashioneyesta for the Gory Stories tour at the Old Royal Naval College. Our group was led around the impressive campus by a nice lady who told us some stories and legends about deaths, murders, executions and ghosts, relating to Henry VIII, seamen and pensioners from the past. So that was fun and interesting, lasting just under an hour, and thankfully the weather behaved as the tour was mainly outdoors.

The Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. A pathway between two large expanses of grass leads towards a large opening between two stone buildings with domes on the top.
The tour guide for our Gory Stories tour, wearing a green wig under a flat black hat with gold trim, leading us along a wide path next to a large stone building on the left.
The Cutty Sark, viewed from the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College. a couple of people can be seen climbing the rigging of the central and largest of the 3 masts.
A fairly small, enclosed courtyard at the Old Royal Naval college, with buildings 3 stories high made of white stone or red brickwork.

We also ate well that afternoon. Before the tour we had a quick snack at Ruby’s Of London, a vegan patisserie in Greenwich Market, where I had a tasty apple crumble cupcake and some coconut hot chocolate, while Emily’s cake was suitably pumpkin flavoured for the day. We then ventured further into the market and, after a nice look around some of the stalls, we succumbed to temptation in a proper old-fashioned sweet shop called Mr Humbug, where I got a couple of lovely slabs of coconut ice and some strawberry sherbets to share with Mum. And finally, after the Halloween tour, we had a nice lunch at Bill’s, where I tucked into their BBQ Bourbon Burger and fries, which was very nice. We liked the look of their Christmas menu while we were there too, so we’ve made a reservation for that in December, although if Emily gets a tempting press invite elsewhere that could potentially change of course!

An apple crumble muffin cupcake, with a swirl of yellow frosting on the top, alongside a tall glass of coconut hot chocolate, at Ruby's of London in Greenwich.
A tall shelving unit at Bill's restaurant in Greenwich covered in Halloween decorations, including pumpkins in a variety of colours, spiders, cobwebs and skeletons.
A BBQ Bourbon burger at Bill's restaurant, topped with pulled BBQ beef brisket, cheddar, house pickles & a glug of Kentucky Bourbon, with a side of rosemary salted fries.

Sculpture Trails

I also explored a couple of the outdoor sculpture trails that come around every year. They both focus on modern art, so some items made more sense or were more appealing than others. But in both cases information was provided online, in addition to the panels alongside them, which I found really helped to put things into context so I understood the intentions of the artist better. And the maps provided for each trail were also very helpful.

Frieze Sculptures

Firstly the Frieze Sculpture trail returned to the stunning surroundings of Regent’s Park once again, between 20 September and 29 October. This is the third time I’ve checked it out, having explored previous trails in August 2019 and October 2021. For this visit I was able to use the interactive map online to find each sculpture, where selecting each item on screen (or scanning the QR code by each object in the park) brought up an audio track with a narrator talking about the artist and the sculpture, often followed by a short recording from the artist themselves. So that was pretty cool.

As a few examples, the Frieze artworks included one that looked like a huge piece of colourful fabric caught in the wind, a pedestal with a model of a human ear in a pool of water, a column covered in moss, 2 ducks facing each other, a huge and colourful rocket-style totem pole, a man sleepwalking in just his underpants, the Grim Reaper, a figure that looked like it was made out of twisted balloons, a series of small plant containers that spelt out “My Body, My Choice”, and an augmented reality piece that was only visible if you scanned a special code and used your phone’s camera to see it standing on the box in front of you (which sort of worked, though I found it kept drifting off a bit).

A sculpture by Yinka Shonibar called Material (SG) 4, which looks like a huge piece of fabric caught in a strong wind, covered in a myriad of bright and bold coloured patterns.
A sculpture by Zak Ové called The Mothership Connection. It is a large, brightly coloured and decorated totem pole, designed to look a little bit like a rocket ship. At the top is a black face with rabbit-like pointed ears.
A realistic sculpture of a man sleepwalking, with his arms out in front of him, dressed only in white underpants. The artwork is called Sleepwalker by Tony Matelli.
A sculpture by Hans Rosenstrōm called Unfolding Silence. It consists of a stone pedestal, on top of which is a pool of water with a pink model of a human ear floating in it.
A sculpture of the grim reaper holding a scythe, called Friend by Josh Smith.
A sculpture of a figure holding a flower in each hand, which looks like it's made out of long thin balloons, the type that are used to make balloon animals for children.

Sculpture In The City

The other art trail I explored was Sculpture In The City, which I last saw a few years ago in June 2019. This year’s trail is the 12th edition, which started on 27 June and runs until next Spring, and consists of artworks that are scattered around the financial district. So I started at Liverpool Street station and followed the route on their map that formed a messy loop around the area, although you can view them in any order of course.

You can also use the Bloomberg Connects app to explore the trail, which includes a map, along with details for each artwork, sometimes accompanied by a video or audio track. And it works, provided you don’t come out of the app to do anything else. I was regularly switching out of the app to use my camera to take photos, and on several occasions when I switched back into the Bloomberg app it would reset itself, forcing me to search for the trail and find my place again, which quickly became very frustrating. So I had to give up on that, as the static map on the website was much more reliable.

Artworks on this trail included a couple of small decorative nests in a tree, a large red transparent box with another box nested inside it, a megaphone on a pole, a lit-up sign saying “We Are All One” but with the first L going out sometimes to make it look like “We Are Alone”, colourful artistry underneath a couple of staircases, a ceiling projection showing video clips of trees and water, a life-size sculpture of a traditional English grain store, and a fun spin on memorial bench plaques (saying “In loving memory of…” followed by things like “a loving memory”, “navigating an awkward silence”, “opening a burger van on the peak of a mountain and selling dream concepts“, “a bench – not this bench, another one”, etc).

A gold bench plaque with black text that reads In loving memory of that feeling you get, can't quite put into words, feels a bit like, you know? The plaque is part of a series called In Loving Memory by Oliver Bragg.
A sculpture called Pacific Red 4 by Larry Bell, consisting of a large red transparent box with another transparent box nested inside it.
An artwork called The Garden Of Floating Words by Elisa Artesero. It consist of 6 tall, very narrow, transparent panels, each of which has letters reading downwards, lit up in blue neon light. Going across they read You've gone touching leaves in the moonlight.
Sculpture called The Granary by Jesse Pollock. It is a life-sized sculpture of a traditional English grain store, consisting of a small hut with a corrugated iron roof and diagonal criss-cross bars on the small windows on the door and on the side. The hut is perched on 4 legs that have very large pyramid-shaped feet. The sculpture is finished in a pearlescent candy orange, and is designed to look like the hut has been a bit battered out of shape.
A sculpture called Untitled Megaphone by Phyllida Barlow, consisting of a metal megaphone that looks worse for wear on top of a 6 metre tall pole.
The undersides of two tall staircases that have been colourfully decorated. The predominant colours for the artworks are white on the left staircase and red on the other, but there are random, sweeping lines of other colours all over them, mainly blue and red on the left staircase, and white, blue and yellow on the other.

Entertainment

Doctor Who

With the 60th anniversary specials of Doctor Who imminent, I continued revisiting the earlier episodes of the modern era by going through Series 4 in October, which is another incredible set of stories. I’m not a fan of Catherine Tate’s sketch show, but that doesn’t really demonstrate what she’s truly capable of as a performer, whereas in Doctor Who she’s amazing at the comedic and dramatic aspects of it, especially in the last few episodes when things get particularly dark and complicated. And it’s great to see several former companions returning too. So I’ve written a very in-depth review about it, talking about the episodes, Blu-ray extras and other related items of interest, just as I did for the previous few series.

I’ve already made a start on the 2008-10 specials as well, that concluded the roles of both David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Russell T Davies as showrunner, because I want to try and get those out of the way before David and Russell both return for the 60th anniversary specials later in November.

The full cover spread artwork for the Doctor Who Series 4 Blu-ray steelbook. The front cover shows David Tennant as the Doctor, looking sideways on at us, wearing a long brown coat with his sonic screwdriver pointing downwards in his right hand. Donna Noble, his redheaded companion, is in front of him, looking straight ahead at us, wearing a shiny red jacket over a dark blue top. Meanwhile the back cover shows Davros and a couple of Daleks in front of the Tardis, with a few large planets in the sky in the background.

The BBC have already kicked off their celebrations of the big milestone by launching The Whoniverse on iPlayer, which brings together over 800 episodes from the Classic and New eras of the show, plus several spin-offs, with audio description, subtitles and sign language. It’s great that it’s all in one place at long last, and it’s absolutely fantastic that they’ve put so much effort into making it accessible, which they haven’t always done on the Blu-rays (audio description and navigation are only available from Series 6 on those).

The collection also includes the full-length episodes of Doctor Who Confidential, going behind the scenes of the first 6 series of the New era, whereas the DVD and Blu-ray releases have usually had cut-down versions, with occasional exceptions. There are also some other documentaries and extra treats, and the collection will keep growing, as they’ve promised there’s more stuff on the way. Plus there’s an extensive behind the scenes archive of information, interviews, images, documents, etc about the making of the show and its popularity over the years.

So I’m going to take my time looking through some of that treasure trove in the weeks and months ahead, as well as watching the anniversary trilogy of course, and I’ll obviously let you know what I think as I go along. I also intend to continue my Blu-ray reviews of the modern series in the new year. But don’t worry if you’re not into Doctor Who, as I’ll be continuing to watch and listen to other things as well, so it won’t be the only piece of entertainment that I talk about. I like variety as much as everyone else!

Comedy Shows

  • I also got around to hearing the revived series of Room 101 this month, which was broadcast on Radio 4 back in May, where people nominate their pet hates to be banished forever. Each episode features a single person interviewed by Paul Merton, who was the very first guest on the original radio show hosted by Nick Hancock on Radio 5 between 1992 and 1995. The series had then transferred to TV of course, first with Nick as the host and then Paul, before the format was changed to have 3 guests per episode when Frank Skinner hosted it. So it’s nice that it’s gone back to its roots here, and Paul’s still a good host, chatting to Claudia Winkleman, Desiree Burch, Steph McGovern, Mark Steel, Phil Wang & Julian Clary in these new episodes. For me the funniest guests were Mark and Julian, but the others were also good in their own way, and I tended to agree with at least one of the choices in each episode. Long time readers of this blog may also remember the post I did back in 2017 called Room 101 – My Visually Impaired Frustrations, which proved to be quite popular, so do feel free to check that out if you haven’t seen it before.

Conclusion

And that’s it, I hope you enjoyed that as usual. It’s been a nice relaxing month, and November will be as well. I’m going to see a comedy show with a friend, and Doctor Who’s obviously going to be a big obsession because of its anniversary, but otherwise I don’t yet know what the month will bring. I always have things in mind that I want to do though, so I’ll continue to make the most of my time and I should have plenty to share with you in my next post. So I hope you have fun as well, whatever you get up to, and I’ll see you again next time!

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.

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