I was born and raised near Blackpool, so I can tell you with a local’s knowledge that it is a tacky and awful place.
It is however a big tourist town which means attractions. The primary ones being the rollercoaster filled pleasure beach and the famous Blackpool tower but there are some of the ubiquitous staples like Madame Tussauds and Ripley's Believe it or not.
There have also across the years been a few occasional smaller and more interesting museums. Most notably was the Dr Who museum that my young self visited many times.
When I was back visiting my parents told me something new had opened. ‘Showtown’, a museum about the town’s showbusiness history. And a new museum is always enough to make me overcome any disdain I may have for a place.
Seemingly forming a part of the council's earnest yet doomed attempts to reform the town, the museum is a modern and airy space filled with interactive exhibits, archival clips and even themed actors to introduce you to the space.
It looks great, pulling off a loud but clear decorative style with distinct themed zones covering comedy, circus, ballroom dancing and more. Children running around pressing fart noise buttons or playing with Punch and Judy puppets. It gives off a great atmosphere and looks great in photos.
Image of the Inside of Showtown’s Circus Section (Image from Showtown)
As an educational space however, it's all fur coat and no knickers. Whilst not as bad as the Cold War Museum in Berlin, which offered almost no information at all, the panels and displays offer only the scantest of context. Did you know that Tommy Cooper performed in Blackpool? Did you also know he wore a Fez? Well now you do and that's all the display will tell you, but there is a big picture of him and a huge fez you can take a photo with.
Don't get me wrong, Instagramable moments are something I think are vital to modern exhibitions but there still needs to be some actual information available.
By way of an example we can point to the display about the famous Blackpool illuminations. I tasked my parents with what should be a fairly simple task. “what was the first year of the illuminations?” They came back from the display with a couple of possible answers and a confused look.
This confusion is understandable because it's not a totally straightforward answer. The short answer is 1912, but that was effectively just the implementation of fancy street lighting along the promenade (which was a novelty at the time). The modern idea of the tableauxs, shaped lamps and festooned trams only really started in the 1930s. And there was also a proto illuminations hosted in 1879 which was simple a few bright lamps which was enough of a feature at the time and is what inspired the later parade of lights.
Image of the 1912 Princess Parade Lighting (Image from Showtown)
The display however makes basically no distinction between these three very different styles of event with it being unclear if the lights were there between 1897-1912. Indeed the display reads almost exactly like the Wikipedia page which is equally unclear.
“The Blackpool tower ballroom is hugely important to ballroom dancing the world over”, okay but why?. “Did you know that there are three different types of clowns, here are the different kinds of outfits they wear” interesting… But how do the types differ and why? It was the same over and over again, an interesting tid bit about something but then no further explanation.
This puts Showtown to me as definitely an ‘Attraction’. It will entertain for an hour or so but is ultimately a hollow experience that teaches nothing. Which whilst not invalidating to its existence does make it as disappointing to me as the rest of Blackpool.
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