E is for Exhibition Report

So, trundled down to Southampton in last Sunday's gales, spent an hour in a traffic-jam minutes from the venue (note; come off the A27 (M) at the A31, not 'town centre and docks'!), was well worth the trip...and the wait!

Character figures featured, with Herr Hitler coming in for a fair bit of ridicule! I believe the Kitchener doll (about 15", larger than Action Man/GI Joe) pre-dates the First World War, and reflects on his efforts in South Africa? - Correction - an hour later...He's a WWI patriotic item...Kitchener Doll

Wartime wooden austerity figures from the States ("Manufactured under licence by Colorgraphic") rubbed shoulders with some lovely Heinrichsens, tin-plate clockwork Westerners and Britians risible swan-song!

The three Heinrichsen cavalry are particularly interesting as they have a moving-arm feature brought about by a sort of tube/rivet/collar running through the body of the flat, joining the arms in free-movement. The Britains figures were reasonable, but the vehicles? Awful, just awful, and it's only when you see them like this that you appreciate how incredibly poor the support stuff for the figures was.

What's going on here?!! Just enlarge (right click, open in new tab) and enjoy...you've got Lilliputian Bluebird tying-down a vintage Action Man, while a modern one gloats, they are being totally ignored by an AT-ST engaging some Airfix Japs and DAK...an so it goes on...I could have spent an hour going round this table spotting stuff!

Architecture provided by Burnett's Ubilder and the entrance lobby of the museum building, part of the old Town Hall, the museum itself is a very modern structure.

There was plenty for kids, voting boxes with a supply of rack-toy figures to vote with (I was tempted to palm a couple of the larger pale green ones I hadn't seen before (I didn't!), colouring sheets, video-loop displays etc...

It's a small exhibition, took 40/50 minutes to cover? The message is social history, with specific regard to war toys, and there is a vague chronological path to follow through the room, with thematic displays.

Not photographed are lots more flats, some really nice compositions, the expected hollow-casts (including some lovely small size Britains khaki cavalry of Boar War typeidge (made-up word!)) and a lot of board games...if I have a criticism - it's the display of the board games; a lot were unopened, some just had the lids off and where they were 'set-up' it was 'token' rather than 'by the rules', and on CAD printed boards, not the actual boards (which were present, folded in the boxes)?

I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in these things, and while I don't know how much longer it's 'on tour' or where it's going next (if at all), it's will remain at So'ton 'till the 10th May, so you've got a month there.

And...I had no problem taking photographs in full view of the attendant - and wish I'd taken more!