I’ve been meaning to post about the abysmal state of the London Planetarium since we took Yumiko there for a birthday treat back in October. You know how it is though, you leave it a little while and then start to wonder whether the world really needs another blog-based rant. But something happened this morning that caused my anger at Madame Tussauds‘ management of the Planetarium to resurface - the news that, by this summer, the 40 year old London Planetarium will be no more.
According to Madame T., only 3 in every 10 visitors to the mighty house of wax bother to attend the miserly 15 minute projection of the journey from earth to the edges of the known universe and some of them have been falling asleep. Now this I can believe, but unlike Madame Tussauds, this I can also explain. You see, to visit the London Planetarium it is necessary to queue for approximately half an hour, hand over £25 for the privilege of fighting your way through a warehouse of wax effigies, ride a bizarre and slightly worrying parody of London through the ages and push past the corporate tie-in waxworks just to get to the unassuming entrance of the Planetarium. Now, how many potential planetarium visitors do you know that also want to spend two hours looking at life-size replicas of the rich and famous? Oh, and are prepared to pay £25 for a 15 minute show that fails to fulfil the actual purpose of a planetarium - to act as a guide to the night sky as seen from the earth? I’ll admit that I was one but there’s a reason I really wanted to go to the Planetarium. You see, one of the few memories I have of my childhood is a school trip to the, then much better, planetarium and I can still visualise the poster I got there and how long I kept it on my wall obsessing about the structure of our solar system. I remember how in those days space was something to marvel at, something that grounded you and your understanding of the human race’s position in the universe. If I’m fair, I have to say that the current planetarium show does still do this by pointing out that “there are more galaxies in the universe than there are grains of sand on all of the earth’s beaches” but if you wanted to find out anything more then I’m afraid you’d be in the wrong place.
So what are your options for appeasing the space obsessed in the capital? It appears the Royal Observatory Greenwich currently has a temporary planetarium and plans to open a much grander affair in 2007. Failing that you could always take a trip to Birmingham who’s Thinktank Planetarium was recommended to me as the best planetarium in England a couple of weeks ago.
Farewell dear London Planetarium, may we all forget our insignificance in the grand scheme of things and set our sights clearly on the shallowness of modern celebrity.
