Raunchy jokes have long been a feature of stage shows in Blackpool, Britain’s cheeky home of seaside entertainment. Traditionally, many of these are told at the expense of the town known for its autumnal illuminations, with lighter jokes noting how much better it looks in the dark.
We’re at the London opening of Jez Butterworth’s latest play. California HillsSet in a Lancashire resort, the film has added more quotable lines to the list. The film begins in a Blackpool boarding house in the scorching hot summer of 1976, with a character complaining: “Everything in the city is ‘kiss me quick, mine’s chocolate ice’.”‘ – here, in the back streets, massacre!”
In a month’s time, Blackpool’s legacy of spectacular holiday entertainment – from donkey rides to spectacles, magic tricks and ballroom dancing – will be honored on a grand scale with the opening of a major new museum, Showtown. Costing £15 million and planned for a decade, much of this museum now relies on glittering displays of sequins, music hall posters and showbiz artefacts, including the late Tommy Cooper’s famous red fez and, of course, a prominent tourist’s kiss-me specimen. -quick hat.
“We want to celebrate the genius of Blackpool,” said Showtown chief executive Elizabeth Moss. “This is about restoring pride and putting the spotlight back on us.”
The town’s association with the entertainment industry dates back to its emergence as the premier resort for working men and women more than a century ago. It offered affordable excitement to struggling families as well as the opportunity to see famous artists.
It also fostered an escapist longing for Hollywood glamor; California Hillscurrently garnering acclaim in London’s West End. The director is also Sam Mendes, the author’s collaborator on the Bond film. Downpour and the theatrical hit of 2017 ferrymanThe series follows four sisters whose frustrated, star-struck mother schemes for them all to make it big.
Blackpool’s new museum will feature six galleries spanning 100 square metres, providing ample space for the pioneering days of seaside entertainment and its leading celebrities. They range from singers such as Rochdale’s Gracie Fields and Wigan-born George Formby to clown and comic Charlie Cairoli and Cumbria’s Stan Laurel, Liverpool’s Ken Dodd and modern northern stand-up hero Peter Kay.
Dodd’s widow, Anne, donated money for an educational field named after her husband, where local young people could study their glittering heritage.
But Showtown, just behind the city’s famous tower, will have more to offer than entertainment. Its launch is part of an optimistic regeneration project for Blackpool, backed by a strong partnership of business and heritage funds, and designed to stimulate the economy by attracting more than 200,000 visitors.
In 2021 Blackpool council agreed to pay £250,000 a year in rent, and the Blackpool Heritage and Museum Trust was subsequently formed to revitalize a property that had lost much of its luster behind the flashy glitz of the waterfront.
The town, crushed under the weight of the cost of living crisis, is one of the poorest towns in England. Research in 2019 found that almost a third of children lived in poor homes, compared to 17% nationally.
The conductor on the tram crossing the Golden Mile past all three Blackpool piers last week was brimming with civic pride, promising visitors “a different town from April” and ignoring the gray skies and empty streets.
Many visitors to the ball in February did not know that a major museum was coming. Martin, who was walking his dogs, said he had been coming to Blackpool for 35 years and still loved it. “There’s a lot here and it’s a really good value.” His partner is Siobhan’s carer and the pair take the bus. “Morecambe is the one who needs help. “There’s nothing there,” he said.
Louise, who worked for a pharmaceutical company in Leeds, had a half-price deal on a guesthouse and had been visiting since she was a child. “It’s nice to look at the sea, but behind it, behind the balloon, it looks like Beirut,” she said. “I usually go to Spain now, but I wanted to get out of town for a few days.”
Posters on the North Pier promote shows featuring comedian Roy “Chubby” Brown; Away from the sea, arcades alternate with fortune teller booths like that of Gypsy Petulengro, a long-established family business that will be celebrated in an exhibition in Showtown. .
On the stairs leading to the museum, the tone is set by seaside colors beneath the hanging letters spelling out the delightful “Ha Ha Ha.” Billed as a “singing, all-dancing event for the whole family,” it aims to dazzle kids with interactive displays, including a clown car, as well as Instagrammable moments for youngsters, including an infinity light room and entertainment opportunities hopes to present. have fun and have fun or learn about disco and the northern soul boom. (Appropriate enough for a venue that once hosted an ITV music show in the 1980s) Hitman and Him.)
Ballroom dancing and the town’s links to the BBC Definitely Come Dance It also features behind-the-scenes details and narration by late judge Len Goodman. But there’s also some serious history, filled with rare archive footage and unique curiosities, such as brass memorabilia of Nelson’s retired flagship, HMS Foudroyant, which ran aground off the coast of Blackpool in 1897; early Punch and Judy puppet; and a real lion tamer’s stick with teeth marks, one of 27 objects donated by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Curator Jill Carruthers is also pleased that Showtown won’t shy away from challenging content. Circus exhibits tackle the issue of animal cruelty, and visitors are invited to consider the incivility of the freak shows that were so popular a century ago.
Whether this museum, along with renovations to the Winter Gardens and plans for surrounding hotels and other museums, will attract enough crowds will become clear over time. Investors including the Heritage Lottery Fund, Coastal Communities Fund, Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund and Lancashire Growth Deal are all counting on it.
“This is a different kind of museum,” a hopeful Moss said. “Something to show people behind the scenes of many worlds, including magic, whose biggest international convention is being held in the Winter Gardens this weekend. Blackpool is at the heart of so many aspects of entertainment.”