Last month, at the National Museum of British History, we opened our new Dickens exhibition. It is part of the Mindwarp programme we are doing in partnership with Jodie Pearshape of the Institute of Perverse Ideas (IPI).
Pretending to be Marxists but funded by secretive wealthy donors, the IPI makes a very nice living attacking social justice and equality work. Jodie is so devious and manipulative; that’s why we directors love her!
And she hates Dickens. She proposed an exhibition to subvert the message of his classic tale, A Christmas Carol. She already had money from her rich backers.
In this modern retelling through a series of dioramas, SC Rouge runs an investment bank in the City. On Christmas Eve, Justin Marley, his dead partner, appears to him in a dream, dressed in a Gucci suit and weighed down by the chains of financial regulation.
Later, the Ghost of Christmas Future (modelled on Lord Tesco) shows Rouge a nightmare world of social justice gone mad. The elderly are well cared for regardless of means.
Refugees live in houses with furniture. Every child participates in arts projects as of right. Rouge is horrified. He asks the ghost how this can be prevented.
When Rouge awakes the next morning, he is delighted to find that the coalition is still very much in power. He orders a champagne breakfast, instructs his director of finance to cut the cleaners’ wages and close the pension scheme, then moves off-shore to avoid tax.
The exhibition got great reviews from Jodie’s friends on Front Row. The public hated it, but where would Britain be if we national museum directors listened to what they wanted?
Pretending to be Marxists but funded by secretive wealthy donors, the IPI makes a very nice living attacking social justice and equality work. Jodie is so devious and manipulative; that’s why we directors love her!
And she hates Dickens. She proposed an exhibition to subvert the message of his classic tale, A Christmas Carol. She already had money from her rich backers.
In this modern retelling through a series of dioramas, SC Rouge runs an investment bank in the City. On Christmas Eve, Justin Marley, his dead partner, appears to him in a dream, dressed in a Gucci suit and weighed down by the chains of financial regulation.
Later, the Ghost of Christmas Future (modelled on Lord Tesco) shows Rouge a nightmare world of social justice gone mad. The elderly are well cared for regardless of means.
Refugees live in houses with furniture. Every child participates in arts projects as of right. Rouge is horrified. He asks the ghost how this can be prevented.
When Rouge awakes the next morning, he is delighted to find that the coalition is still very much in power. He orders a champagne breakfast, instructs his director of finance to cut the cleaners’ wages and close the pension scheme, then moves off-shore to avoid tax.
The exhibition got great reviews from Jodie’s friends on Front Row. The public hated it, but where would Britain be if we national museum directors listened to what they wanted?
