Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery have just come into some money, £300,000, and they’re going to use it to create a gallery showing Birmingham’s history from medieval times to the present day. I’m sure we used to have something a bit like this (a local history room anyway).
But anyway — apart from getting some of the industrial history stuff back from Thinktank, digging out the system that did push-button playback of “I can’t find old Brummagem” and providing some of the Library’s Baskerville collection — with a decent home what should it have?
Here’s some suggestions:
- Dennis Mortimer’s beard from when villa won the European cup.
- Every plan and architects model for a regenerated Brum, all google-earthed up and you can rum simulations of how the city would have looked if they’d come to pass.
- An interactive exhibit that allows you to do the voice over for Telly Savalas looks at Birmingham – a bit like Singstar where you have to match the pitch, speed and not laugh when you claim to have “dallied in Dale End”.
- Dana International – well she’s not doing anything at the moment.
- A “how we used to stuff our faces” section, including replica RTP crisps (thanks @regengirl), the first balti pies (from Walsall’s ground), whatever retro sweets Cadbury are knocking out that week, Frosty Jack’s Cider, Highgate Mild – plenty of merchandising opportunities.
- A diorama depicting how Brum was at the time of the Doomesday book (a small holding worth a pound apparently) – for bonus points the medieval man should stand near a goat and look suspiciously like Benny from Crossroads.
- An anamatronic Carl Chinn, that eventually goes crazy Westworld style, lecturing all and sundry about local history.
- A “how the museum used to be” section – with a papier-mâché T-Rex (meta I know).
Your turn…
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