Skip to main content

Dickens in 4D


What the Dickens? It's a theme park with an Oliver Twist. Click to enlarge.

Dickensian England was a pretty brutal place all round. Our modern-day Scrooges and Bill Sykeses are no match for the mean-spirited and violent originals from the nineteenth century. That's why I was delighted to discover that the world of Charles Dickens has been lovingly recreated in a Chatham theme park called Dickens World. According to the leaflet I recently picked up, 'some parts of the attraction are not suitable for children under 1 metre tall or those with a nervous disposition'. It must be truly scary. I'd definitely want to be at least 1m 2cm before consumptively coughing up the entrance fee.

"Be thrilled," the copy thunders in the style of a B-movie trailer, "by the tales of Dickens' foreign adventures in a stunning 4D cinema show in Peggotty's Boathouse."

4D? I've only just got used to putting those special glasses on for 3D. Forgive my ignorance, but isn't 4D the kind of thing that only exists in postgraduate classes in theoretical physics? I expect there must be a wormhole at the back of Dotheboys Hall. As you head towards it, you're confronted by a resting actress who's dressed as Mrs Squeers and threatening you with a bowl of brimstone and treacle.

I feel I owe it to WARTE readers to make the trip at some point in the near future and report back on these very pages. In fact, I'm already picturing the journey...

"Please excuse me, Madam," I ventured hesitantly, "but I wondered if I might prevail upon you to direct me with the upmost urgency to Dickens World? I have a natural incapacity in matters of geography and find myself somewhat disadvantaged."

"You mean that place where they all dress up them costumes? It's down by the cinema, next to the Factory Outlet."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Becoming a Twister board

I spent yesterday evening in an old factory building off Brick Lane playing kids' games with an organisation called Fun Fed. The idea is that a bunch of adults get together and act like children for a couple of hours. We played tag and stuck big coloured discs on ourselves so that we could become human Twister mats. There was an awful lot of running around and I was thinking that I ought to get to aikido a bit more often. Being a child is very hard work.
1 comment
Read more

Captain Birdseye and other people of rank

Regular readers may recall that I once doubted the existence of Yeo Valley. I'd never heard of the Yeo mountain range and I therefore rated the likelihood of there being a valley at somewhere between 0 and 5%. Of course, I had yoghurt all over my face when I discovered that the place really does exist. Somewhere in Somerset, I seem to recall. Today, having read an article in the latest edition of The Marketer magazine, I'm astonished to discover that there really was a Captain Birdseye. Well, I need to qualify that just a little. There was a Mister Clarence Birdseye who invented the fish finger back in 1955. The avuncular, uniformed figure who dominated our TV screens for about thirty years may have been an invention of over-eager advertising creatives, but he didn't blow in on a trawler during a squall. There was actually some connection to a real human being. These revelations about fish and yoghurt are causing me considerable disquiet, because I'm wondering h...
3 comments
Read more

When one name isn't enough

You may have heard the news reports about the turmoil in Kingston, Jamaica, resulting from the government's attempts to pin down a notorious drug lord on behalf of the US. I was struck by the number of self-styled monikers this guy has given himself. He is, depending on the channel you listen to, known on the street as 'Dudas', 'The Big Man' and 'The President' - worshipped by many impoverished Kingston residents as a benefactor to slum dwellers. It's his real name that seems most appropriate, however. If you were a drug baron called Christopher Coke, wouldn't you leave it at that? It's certainly not a name to be sniffed at.
Post a Comment
Read more