A Lawsuit Waiting To Happen (National Wax Museum)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	National Wax Museum
Date:	05/04/05 (216 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Central, Cheap enough, Funny!

Disadvantages: Not up to usual standards of wax museums...or of other Dublin places

As a veteran of Madame Tussauds, that frightful place on the promenade in Blackpool and a dodgy set-up in a tent on a Polish pier, I thought I would have a pretty good idea what to expect from a wax museum, but the Irish take on it certainly surprised me.

We went to the museum because it was raining and we were passing. We hadn’t set out to go there, nor did we know it existed until we saw the sign, but we decided to chance it, if only to find somewhere to shelter for half an hour or so. The Wax Museum in Dublin is located on Granby Row, off Parnell Square. This is up near the end of O’Connell Street, heading away from the river and with the shiny silver spike behind you. It is simultaneously in the vicinity of shops, bars, restaurants and cinemas without actually being right next to any of these.

The entrance is not at all like the domineering Madame Tussauds down in London. There are no queues round the block for this one, nor steep entry fees as you pass through the doors. The entry fee is around €4 for students, up to €18 for a family ticket, and though we did not know it at the time, if you stop by the Tourist Information on O’Connell street on your way, you can pick up a leaflet with a voucher to save €1 on admission. Once you’ve paid at the shabby little desk you’re directed up the stairs to begin your self-guided tour of the place.

The exhibits may change from time to time, although they looked quite permanent when we were there. That said, I’ve no doubt they’ll rearrange their Pope exhibit in the coming weeks, and perhaps even erect a new shrine to the guy. It was that kind of place. They included famous people but not the usual Hollywood stars and sportsmen you usually find. Instead, there were characters with a distinctly local feel, with Irish themed historical, political, literary, and theatrical figures, neatly arranged in scenes ranging from the Last Supper (Irish themed if you think religious country à religious setting), to a musicians Hall of Fame. In addition to the main area there are various themed ones like the Chamber of Horrors, and Fairytale / Fantasy land. The latter featured all characters children from around the globe would recognize, from the Flintstones to the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles to the Simpsons. These were not behind glass as some of the others were, and you could actually climb into some of the displays quite easily if you fancied. Not the sort of thing you’d dream of doing in a proper place, but this museum, with its distinct lack of guards in the rooms was almost inviting you to do so for the moment or two it took to pose for a photo. This children’s section is the bit my title refers to: some of these statues were appalling, and looked decidedly fake and un-authorized, just like the Polish place. Being a National museum I’m not sure whether they really were, or whether they were just so dated that they were no longer looking their best, but they certainly were not of the standard or resemblance you might normally expect.

Then came the strange bit of the museum: a tunnel maze for children (or trampolinists) to crawl through that takes you from one part of the museum to another. Or so it claimed. In reality it was a dark, narrow, badly carpeted place that was full of dead ends and sharp corners, and, after a while, took you so far from where you started from that worry began to set in. Once we’d turned a few corners we were stuck in pitch blackness, so, and I’ve used this as an example of my innovative nature in job interviews since then, had to resort to using a digital camera to light up the way momentarily with its flash. We kept some of the many photos for prosperity, but at the item it was not laughing matter as dead-ends were sudden and abrupt, and the roof of the tunnel dipped dangerously at places, making you wonder whether or not you would ever make it out in one piece. Bear in mind there were 3 of us, with an average age of 23, and I at least would hesitate before sending a real live child up there on their own.

We escaped that and found ourselves in the hall of mirrors – not part of the Chamber of Horrors but it could have been given the results. They were the normal sort – switching your reflection from Ethiopian to American figures in one easy step – so quite a bizarre thing to find in a wax museum since our reflections were neither wax nor worth exhibiting.

The museum has no facilities as such, apart from toilets which were basic but clean. I would have liked a shop and a café – in museums I always head for these first, just like Rachel et al in Friends – but this offered neither. The museum was laid out over several floors and I saw no lifts though they may have been there.

It wasn’t that bad a place although the likeness to real people at times was appalling, and only the little name places helped you work out who was who. However they did have some nice touches, like the recorded commentary on some of the exhibits telling you who they were and what they were doing. Kids might like the characters there for them, but the narrations aside this is not a press-a-button, see-what-happens kind of museum.

Recommended if it’s raining and you’ve done everything else the city has to offer, but otherwise you may be disappointed unless you’re drunk / high on chocolate when you might just find it hilarious. We did, hence the star rating.


Open: Monday-Saturday, 10am-5:30pm, Sunday, 1pm-5:30pm.

Summary: