Which Way to head if you

WITH the countdown under way to the Great Exhibition of the North, excitement is building across the region.

We’ve 80 days of celebration to look forward to, as the North East hosts what is hotly anticipated as the biggest event to take place in England this year.

Proud residents will be able to pick up the new GEOTN programme from next week when it will be made available in the venues which will be helping to host the main event.

But the Great Exhibition is to be a showcase not just of our region but for the whole of the North and our host galleries and museums will be displaying stand-out exhibits on loan from across the wider area.

So what can we expect to see when the Great Exhibition of the North gets under way on June 22?

Here, we take a look at one host venue – The Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle – which will be cornering more than its fair share of visitors thanks to a cracking 10 exhibits going there on loan. The museum has been closed while preparing its exhibition space but here are the highlights that visitors can expect to see, in Which Way North, when it re-opens for the event’s June 22 to September 9 run.

Top 10 star loans you won’t want to miss 1. Helen Sharman’s Space Suit

Dr Helen Sharman was the first British astronaut. Born in Sheffield in 1963, she studied at the University of Sheffield, became a chemist and an astronaut, and was the first woman to visit the Mir space station in 1991.

She was working as a food technologist in 1989 when she heard an advert on her car radio: “Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary”. Selected from more than 13,000 applicants, she spent 18 months training in Russia – in ‘Star City,’ Moscow, – before being launched on May 18, 1991.

She spent eight days in space and undertook scientific experiments related to medicine and growing plants.

2. The Eleventh Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver

Dan Walker, born in 1971, studied at Teesside University, Middlesbrough, before becoming an industrial designer and concept artist.

This iconic prop was imagined by Walker who has designed extensively for TV, film, gaming and the likes of including Star Wars, Marvel, Star Trek and the Ford Motor Company. When the TARDIS rebuilt itself during “the 11th hour”, it provided the newly-regenerated 11th Doctor (played by Matt Smith) with a Sonic Screwdriver to replace one destroyed during his encounter with Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi. This remained his constant aide until it was damaged beyond repair during a battle between Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor, Davros and the Daleks in The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar episode.

3. Damien Hirst - Heaven

The artist, born in 1965, grew up in Leeds and studied at Jacob Kramer School of Art which is now Leeds Arts University) This tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde solution looks like a natural history museum specimen and forms part of his Natural History series. Hirst said he wanted a shark big enough to eat you and “real enough to frighten you”. The steel-framed vitrines were inspired by Francis Bacon’s space-frames.

4. John Lennon’s Record Plant Piano

The Beatles star from Liverpool was playing this very piano – a favourite of his – in New York on the day he was killed, December 8, 1980. The singer-songwriter and activist used it at the Record Plant Recording Studio, while working on the track Walking On Thin Ice and he was carrying the final cut of the song that night when he was shot, aged 40, outside his New York apartment. He had played this piano on many of his solo albums, including

VISITORS TO THE GREAT EXHIBITION WILL HAVE THE RARE CHANCE TO SEE SOME REAL NATIONAL TREASURES, WRITES BARBARA