BBC Earth Experience – 08/08/23

Ever wondered what it would be like to visit the Planet Earth? Well, now you can find out but be warned – you have to go to West Brompton first and that’s as tricky to get to as Mercury. Which is why we ended up getting off at Earls Court and walking the last bit – it was easier than waiting for a District line train on the Wimbledon branch.

Anyway, it worked out well because there was a Pret and a TARDIS:

Although the not-so-ideal part was that it was tipping it down, which made the short walk a very soggy one:

But it was easy enough to find and yes, would have been just a few short minutes from West Brompton. But I might not have been caffeinated.

We’d booked online for a specific timeslot so, once the Hollys arrived, we were straight through apart from a bag check. It was very smooth and, on a sunnier day, Empress Place might have been a nice place to hang out as there was street food and giant chess. This month has not been a street food kinda month though.

(Except last week, when Nathan and I ate street food far away from the street in Walthamstow Mall)

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this experience but it is essentially one large room with multiple screens showing videos in extremely high definition. It’s immersive in that the screens are everywhere but it’s not VR or anything that requires a headset, which is good because some of the assembled kids were not keen on the idea of putting anything over their eyes (Reuben tells me he gets “enough injuries on a day-to-day basis without VR”)

So we settled down in the middle of the room and started to watch. There were some seats and some large cushions but on a busy day it’s probably best to bring your own.

It really is best to settle in and relax because the film is quite lengthy. David Attenborough takes us through each of the seven continents, describing the wildlife and plant life on each one in his trademark soothing tones. I would be remiss if, at this point, I didn’t mention that I once met David Attenborough when I worked for Clarks….and he bought a pair of shoes called “Nature”. That truly was the best day ever.

How much your kids will engage depends on their age and stage really. Eva is interested in all things adorable and floofy so there was plenty to entertain her. Reuben put his hood up throughout the Australian section in case there were any spiders but other than that, he seemed to enjoy it. It’s hard to describe the scale of it all but it is massive and really draws you in. There were some very pretty bits, like this swarm of fireflies, which looks like Nature’s Goldschläger:

But then also some quite gruesome bits where the adorable floofy animals ate each other. But that is the natural world for you. We were all relieved when a tiny penguin managed to escape an elephant seal, except Eva who just loves seals and was rooting for it.

As well as the main room, there are two side rooms which are a bit more interactive. One is the Micro Life area, which comes with this warning:

You can guess which of my kids decided to stay away from this one.

Inside the room, it’s dark with a big red button which activates the screens. I wasn’t entirely sure whether we were doing it right but we certainly managed to make some creepy-crawlies appear:

The other room was called Water Life and had those motion-sensitive screens that you can just spend hours in front of, making pretty patterns:

After that, we went up onto the balcony where I think you could watch the full seven continents again but with different videos and different narration. I’m not sure how the narration worked, as there wasn’t anywhere where it sounded like there were clashing soundtracks going on…but I think it was different as it matched the video. The kids were a bit too hungry and tired to do the full reel again so we started to head out.

First though, we spent some time watching this giant screen in between the balcony and the ground which was almost like a flight simulator because it genuinely felt like you were moving while watching it. Reuben felt travel sick so couldn’t look at it for long but the rest of us enjoyed it.

There were two more things to look at on the way out – firstly, this 3D model of the Earth (spherical at the front, conical at the back…in mo way flat)

And secondly, a greenscreen booth in the gift shop where you could take photos for free with an animal of your choice. It gets e-mailed directly to you so ours went to Eva’s e-mail address and I haven’t yet seen it. I’m sure it was something special though.

ETA: She sent it! I’m glad I’m paying for those drama lessons

It was a fun morning out but we probably maxed out the experience at around the 90 minute mark. There could have been a few more interactive things and a cafe definitely would have kept us there longer. It was the hunger rather than nature-fatigue which pushed out back out into the rainy West London day.

There didn’t seem to be huge numbers of lunch options around West Brompton and we had plans to go to the Tate Modern via the wobbly bridge. So we headed back to Cannon Street because a) it was on the District Line, b) it’s near the wobbly bridge and c) it has a Leon very nearby. Admittedly,. we did have to change at Earls Court again because there was no Upminster train showing but it all worked out alright.

Fuelled up on waffle fries, halloumi, grain salads and houmous we headed back into the rain for a walk to the Tate Modern. Along the way, we found some Morphs without ever really trying:

 

The Tate Modern was pretty packed, as it often is on a rainy day in August. Quite a lot of the exhibits were things I’d seen before – I think I last took Eva around 2019 – but we did see some interesting new things. There was a film installation where someone had remade a scene from “Imitation of Life” and played it side-by-side with the original. With the women all recast as Asian men, obviously. That’s art for you.

I also liked this giant installation of venetian blinds:

And this stack of radios, which were all tuned to different stations:

This is one of the exhibits that was a bit of an assault on the ears, with the out of sync “Imitation of Life”being the other. I mention this because I’m still slightly irritated that a presumptuous young woman told Reuben off for whistling quietly to himself as he looked at some of the art. Instead of maybe moving to another room of just accepting it as part of a very noisy museum on a busy holiday day, she chose to try and shame him for something that’s a bit of subconscious tic. I don’t know if it’s a ND or an RM thing but he’s been doing it a bit lately and it doesn’t hurt anyone, especially in contrast to a giant stack of detuned radios. I mention this, not to embarrass him further as he mainly shrugged it off but it was me that is still brooding over it. No, I mention it to make this stark point to my readers – if you see a teenage boy engaging with any kind of culture during his summer holidays, without being under duress and seeming to enjoy then for the love of all that is good and holy, do not do anything to mess with that,

Step away from the teenage boys madam. You go enjoy art in the way that you want to (may I suggest a sunny day in termtime?) and let him enjoy it in the way that he wants to. And here ends the lesson.

That small drama apart, we had a fine time. There was lots to look at, even if we didn’t understand it all. But some was just quite pretty:

And some of it was very educational, such as the display about inequality in art which Eva wanted to read every word of:

At one point, the Hollys and Reuben headed across the bridge at the 4th Floor to the other side of the building. Eva is a bit wobbly about heights and had already braved the wobbly bridge so she chose to stay where she was and read these panels:

Eventually we realised that we could just go down in the lift and back up the other side so we were reunited on the 3rd Floor of the Blavatnik Building, where there were computers for making your own art and projecting it on the wall. Did Reuben choose well here or did he choose violence? I guess it depends on whether you can tell what he drew:

I scanned the QR code so, happily, I can view that delightful picture any time I want to. Interestingly, when I took a picture of this window, my phone also tried to scan it as a QR code:

We were all definitely flagging by this point and the Tate Modern isn’t especially close to any tube stations…so we wended our way back slowly towards Waterloo to meet Nathan after work. Along the way, we stopped at a doughnuts and churros van to fuel up a bit, although Eva’s churros looked a lot like fries:

And, of course, the obligatory loo stop at the Royal Festival Hall and a quick climb on the red benches.

That seems like a good place to stop, before we all get too overtired and grouchy. Google Maps tells me we walked almost 4 miles and I think my feet would agree. Still, a lovely day catching up with friends and a tick in the summer holiday culture box. Success!