V&A’s ‘crass and pathetic’ takeover by Beano comic
WHEN it was announced back in January that Tristram Hunt was to resign as a Labour MP to become the V&A’s director, critics sniped he had no experience of running such a celebrated institution.
Hunt, 43, is wasting no time in shaking up the ancient regime at the Victoria & Albert Museum, however.
According to a memo leaked to this column, Hunt plans to allow children’s comic The Beano to ‘take over’ the 165- year- old museum in South Kensington, London, next summer.
The show will feature a string of ‘exhibits’ that have horrified some staff. The memo, sent by V&A festival manager Sophie Reynolds, reveals its plaster cast of Michelangelo’s David sculpture will be fitted with a speaker to emit the sound of someone breaking wind when a visitor passes by.
A spokesman refuses to disclose if The Beano’s publisher, DC Thomson, is paying the museum to hold the show, which will include a display of catapults of the kind famously used by character Dennis the Menace.
One of the V&A’s most valuable objects, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, will have its case covered in vinyl comic book signs. ‘Frankly, some of the things in this memo are disgusting,’ a source tells me. ‘While it’s important to encourage children to visit, farting statues are definitely not the way to
do it. It’s crass and pathetic.’ With the subject line ‘Beano takeover’, Ms Reynolds’ memo reads: ‘I am working on The Beano takeover of the V&A, which will take place in August 2018. This will consist of a trail of installations/interventions throughout the museum.
‘We are working with The Beano creative team to set the route and choose the locations they would like to use. They are very keen to include the cast of David and the notebook of Leonardo da Vinci.’
She goes on to list some of the planned features, which include: ‘display of catapults’; ‘how to make a catapult video’; ‘ notebook of Leonardo da Vinci — vinyls on case’; and ‘motion-activated speaker near to David — farting noise’.