Wednesday 9 June 2010

Museum 'Nights Out' - too much fun..?

As a friendly kinda gallery, we were intrigued recently when Radio 4 aired the issue of whether Britain's art venues and museums are becoming simply 'too much fun'...

During May - as part of the nationwide 'Museums at Night' scheme - intrepid culture-vultures were given the chance to 'sleepover' with Churchill in the Cabinet War Rooms, or could opt for a surgical slumber at The Old Operating Theatre...

In Coventry, the Herbert Gallery offered string quartets; at Newcastle's Discovery Museum there were human fruit machines, whist in Worcestershire, the Avoncroft Museum relied on the lure of free chocolate to pull in hordes of children to take part in their song-and-dance extravaganza.

Here in Norfolk, we got stuck in with a 'light in the night' lantern-making workshop courtesy of the Henry Blogg Lifeboat Musem in Cromer. These would certainly have come in handy for the Cornish - evidently made of sterner stuff - who were offered the chance to 'follow a night shift' down the Geevor tin mine...

So - 'bring it on' or 'rein it in' - fun or fundamentals? What's your view? Let us know by posting your comments below...