Musicals and plays reviews: V & A theatre and performance gallery

I was talking to some people on Facebook recently who wanted to know about the theatre exhibition at the V & A Museum. I went in late August so it was relatively fresh in my mind still and I offered some comments on it. It got me thinking that it is quite relevant to this blog so I thought I'd do a quick post about what it is.

I know there is a new exhibition now to celebrate the Olivier awards so this will have lots more things in it to do with theatre. However, it isn't permanent so I imagine they will change it back to being more like the one I saw and am writing about today when it finishes. I would love to go to the new one but I don't think I'll make it. If anyone does go let me know what it's like! Here's the link to to the new one, so get there if you can! https://shop.vam.ac.uk/whatson/index/view/id/1045/event/Curtain-Up--Celebrating-40-Years-of-Theatre-in-London-and-New-York/dt/2016-02-09/eType/1/free/1

The one I am talking about now though is their regular theatre and performance collection which is a long term gallery. Here's the link to the theatre and performance section on their website, it has some interesting information on it and some links to archives if you are doing research on anything. http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/t/theatre-and-performance/

The gallery was really good, I didn't really know what to expect as I didn't know anyone who had been before. I only accidentally came across it when I was on their website looking what was there, to see if it was worth my Mum and me visiting it whilst my sister and Dad went to the Science Museum across the road that I wasn't bothered about seeing. I'm glad I found it as I enjoyed it and so did my Mum. To be honest, even if your family and/or friends are not big theatre lovers I think that they would probably still enjoy it as there is so much stuff there and it covers a wide range of things. There are lots of unusual items as well which I don't think you could find anywhere else so that keeps people's interests up.

Here's a list of some of my favourite items:

Fred and Ginger's outfits
Lion King costumes
War Horse puppet
Recreation of Kylie's dressing room (this was my Mum's favorite as she loves Kylie and had only been to see her for the 1st time in April last year)
Laurence Olivier's Oedipus costume
Adam Ant's Price Charming outfit
Original flying harness from Peter Pan (my favorite childhood story and film!)

As you can see there is a wide range of things, so probably something for all of the family to enjoy! It does take quite a long time to get around, it doesn't look that big even you walk in, but if you want to take in everything and look carefully at things as well as get good photos and read all of the information, you do need over an hour really. The V & A itself is huge and we only really had time to see that gallery and one of the main big galleries (I can't remember which one but it has lots of columns and gates in it as well as a religious items section and you can look down on it from the second floor) which was incredible to see, especially how big some of the items are, it left me wondering how they transported things!

I would thoroughly recommend a visit, especially as theatre fans, as some of the items are really special to see. The only thing I didn't really like was some of the panto costumes as they are a bit creepy looking, try and spot the evil looking chicken photobombing one of my nice photos below!

Here's some shots from one of the big main galleries, I don't think they really show the size and scale of some of the items though. My Mum is in most of the photos I took in this room so I won't put them up as she doesn't want me to, but the other people in the photos do sort of show the size of them well I guess. I don't know the names of these items but when I get home I'll see if I can find them in the mini guide/map they gave us, I just know it was in the gallery as soon as you come in through the door facing the main road, not the one opposite the Science Museum.