please empty your brain below
I guess the very nature of this museum precludes it from taking part in the "Lates" movement (adults-only evenings once a month) - but I'd be more than happy to forego the alcohol and silent disco in order to have a visit where I can also avoid children.

/curmudgeon

MightyMouse | 23.10.14 - 7:46 a.m. | #

I hope that the 1930,s style walk through house is still there,and James Bond.

John | 23.10.14 - 7:48 a.m. | #

I went and had a general look soon after it reopened, although I didn't join the enormous queue for the WW1 exhibition. On the whole, I was disappointed, particularly by the big hall with the dangly things, which felt cramped and claustrophobic in comparison to its previous form. I'm planning to go to the WW1 art exhibition soon, so I'll give it another go then.

Baldassaro | 23.10.14 - 8:34 a.m. | #

Pretty much the view my son reported back when he visited immediately after the refurb.
"Meh. Not as good as it was. And WTF have they done to the trench? How much did they spend on this?"

Audrey | 23.10.14 - 11:08 a.m. | #

In the 90's I went in the old IWM with my mother. At the time there was a special showing called The Blitz. An older gentleman at the box office asked if she had been in London during the war. When she said yes, he told her not to go to the show. Turns out it was good advice. She was a driver with the St John's Ambulance service in London during the war, lost her Navy brother when his ship was torpedoed by a U-boat and had her home bombed. Just the displays then were a little too evocative for her. She asked if we could leave after 15 minutes. She is gone now, but I wonder if the revamp would have the same impact.

Mary | 23.10.14 - 12:54 p.m. | #

Your review would benefit from omitting the sneering reference to Lord Ashcroft. The display would not exist without Lord Ashcroft spending his own money to amass the largest collection of VCs in existence and making them available to the public. He should be commended and it would reflect better on yourself if you had acknowledged the fact.

Alex | 24.10.14 - 1:49 a.m. | #

This was what I wrote after making a visit there in August:-
I went to the recently re-opened Imperial War Museum, yesterday, and have got to say I was very impressed by the changes that have been made there.
I made a particular point of visiting the galleries on the upper levels which turned out to have an extra-ordinary collection of paintings and sculptures related to the First World War, some of them a lot more 'gritty' than anything I was expecting.
I think one of the most shocking WWI-related pictures I can recall from seeing before wasn't a battle scene but a self-portrait by a German soldier-turned-artist called Ernst Kirchner, who seemed to be suffering so severely from post-traumatic stress disorder that he painted himself with one hand severed at the wrist.
That one isn't there but there are plenty of images there that are just as 'hitting.'
It really is a major credit to the wartime artists who created the works that are on display, that their images still have the power to move people nearly a 100 years after they were made

RogerW | 24.10.14 - 11:51 a.m. | #

RogerW - That self portrait you mention can be seen here, along with a description of the circumstances of its creation and some conjecture about its meaning: http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/Kirchner_SelfPortrait.htm

JonathanC | 27.10.14 - 2:25 p.m. | #











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