The 'V&A' Museum and Grimms Tales

The day begun as usual - with a bunch of bacon, hash browns, eggs, toast, jam, or cereal being crammed into your appreciative stomach. Setting off around 9:00 we are lucky to have a later start than usual. We scoot through the maze of the tube station promptly, seeming as we are getting the hang of its busy ways. Victoria and Albert Museum was not what you expect. Rather than observing the average museums - preserved butterflies, brontosaurus fossils, etc -  we were given an amazing opportunity to visit Alexander McQueen’s ‘Savage Beauty’ display.

Before that day we must admit  that many or us had no clue whatsoever who this “Alexander McQueen” was. He was not a fashion designer. He was an artist. With beautiful gowns of sea shells and glistening wire, he expressed history and turned it into majestic art in which you can wear. Though some of his work could be taken as rather confronting, many of us were able to push past this and realise truly how breathtaking his work was. He had it all- every detail, within the detail, even more detail. His clothing was like a optical illusion. His quotes inspired. His work was truly fitted to the title “savage beauty”.


“I wanted to have everything, to touch everything. And I don't just want to use crystal - I want to invent something new”  
-Alexander McQueen 1998

We returned home for dinner after having explored the V&A and then rushed over to the Oxo tower wharf (near the Globe Theatre) to attend an immersive theatre performance of Grimm tales, most of which we have never heard of before.

Now imagine a room of flickering dull globes - and sounds of unknown origin bouncing off the walls. Portraits cut apart and altered slightly perhaps to add a realistic eye to an octopus or a doll to a child's photograph. Now picture a mirror. This mirror watches you back. You become part of the action - this is immersive theatre, you are included. With short tales and dark rooms the actors both narrate the story and be the story. They tell the original story with all the “distasteful” parts in which fairy tale books remove. The king cut off his twins heads to save his faithful servant. The princesses’ father chose to marry her. The jealous step mother pushed her step daughter into the river to drown.

Caught up in the thrill of chasing the actors the smiles on the audiences faces showed it all. We were truly immersed. We were truly in love.

We walked around the theatre for a solid two hours and by the time we arrived back “home” we were EXHAUSTED and fell sound asleep.

Alison