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Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
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Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
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London,
Nick Hackworth's rating
Reader rating
Wellcome challenge: the displays both educate and inform
'Some exhibits will test the stomachs of the strongest visitors'
Of the privileges granted to the very wealthy, one of the most rewarding must be the opportunity to make a profession of one's hobby.
Sir Henry Wellcome, an eccentric American pharmacist who made a fortune selling medicines that actually worked to Victorian Britain, survived the tribulations of a dysfunctional private and social life largely by throwing himself into the creation of a vast collection of medical, cultural and anthropological objects related to health and medicine.
In the newly refurbished headquarters and hugely increased exhibition spaces of the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road, Sir Henry's wise but idiosyncratic tendency to investigate any culture, discipline or period that shed light on his interests is upheld with vigour.
Click here to see our Gallery of some of the exhibits on display at the Wellcome Collection
Three galleries, one a permanent display of Sir Henry's collection, another of contemporary art, objects and displays that illuminate the state of medicine and health today, and a temporary exhibition space dedicated currently to a show about the heart, combine to provide a refreshingly broad cultural experience that manages to be accessible without being dumbed down.
Compellingly varied, Sir Henry's collection of curios is a good starting point, containing everything from frivolous items such as a lock of George III's hair and a razor belonging to Nelson to a vicious Chinese torture chair and shrunken heads. The adjacent gallery, Medicine Man, combines contemporary art with educational displays, including the first ever printout of the human genome - in more than 100 volumes - and droppings from Dolly, the first cloned sheep.
Most impressive, however, is The Heart, first of the temporary exhibitions, which brings together everything from Egyptian illustrations of the weighing of the hearts of the dead to rare and exquisite anatomical drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci. Some exhibits will test the stomachs of the strongest visitors - patches of dried human skin bearing tattoos and a number of human and animal hearts, including one that only two weeks ago was beating away in the body of 22-year-old woman, who underwent a transplant and may yet visit the show to see her old heart.
Admirably, the show, like the collection in general, manages to educate and inform, while allowing the more diffuse cultural displays room to breathe.
Read the latest reviews from Nick Hackworth in the Evening Standard
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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