Brangelina sans baby-brood for a change, Morgan Freeman hobnobbing with an unspectacled and almost unrecognisable Harry Potter, a smirking John Wayne flanking a scowling gun-toting James Dean, a menacing Vlad the Impaler, and the mangled bloodied corpse of Guy Fawkes.
Where else can one find this queer concoction, but in the wax museum of Madame Tussaud’s?
Situated just a few metres from the Baker Street tube station and The Great Detective immortalized in stone, Madame Tussaud’s is one of the most popular attractions in London, bringing in tourists from all over the world as well as locals eager to catch a glimpse of their favourite celebrities immortalized in wax.
It also had branches in Amsterdam, Berlin, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York and Washington D.C. – and its Hollywood branch is imminent later this year.
Kitsch disco
In the original Madame Tussaud’s in London, monochrome wallpaper paparazzi and nondescript pop music welcome its newest visitors upon the automatic opening of the elevator doors.
The pink-lit floor tiles and surrounding glass panels evoke the sentiment of a disco ball. First on the agenda is the A-list celebrity room, chocked full of stars too famous to need a nameplate.
Herded by the human throng from themed room to themed room – Premiere Night, Sports Arena, A Royal Appointment, Music Megastars, Behind the Scenes, Warhol’s Women, and the horror house Scream – the tour winds up at a ride in simulated black cabs through a tepid mini-rollercoaster of The Spirit of London, a historical tour of the city through the ages.
The sickly-sweet aroma of fudge wafts amidst the Royals and historical British heroes of the Arts.
Scream, Scene, Souvenir
In the Scream room, the eerieness is dampened by the almost-pitch-darkness that cloaks blood only properly visible on the LCD camera screen.
The Behind the Scenes room contains the oldest figure on display – ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Madame Du Barry, her wax chest rising and falling in tandem to her deep breaths of slumber.
The voice of R&B megastar Beyonce explains the stages of the process of wax sculpting on the PA system, while the physical stages are laid out for the eye to admire.
Personalised souvenirs are a la mode – from “make your own award” to “get your own wax hand mould done”.
The pungent paraffin wax does no harm to the dapper James Bond (a la Daniel Craig) standing across the room from his Devil-Without-A-Cause motorbike – which is one of the few non-wax ‘real’ sights to see, complete to a tee with rust and spackled mud.
Maintenance and updating
The figures require constant maintenance – with thousands of daily visitors touching them, they are likely to get worn or broken.
They also require frequent updating.
“Every two months or so we change the clothes on some of the big female stars like Beyonce, Britney and Madonna,” says Shackera, who originally comes from Jamaica and has been working as a full-time Tussaud’s attraction host for over a year.
“Also if the star gets a new tattoo, we will put it on their wax figure.”
Though Shackera – and the information available in the ‘Behind the Scenes’ room – state that celebrities do sittings that last longer than three hours to provide up to two hundred measurements and dozens of photographs to ensure 100% accuracy; Bradley, who has been working at Tussaud’s for six years, says that many figures have been done without sittings.
Lewd shenanigans
It is, without a doubt, more touristy than your average museum – and certainly more well-attended on the average day.
It is virtually impossible to escape being captured in someone’s camera frame, and perhaps even harder to get your own photo with the figure without pushing aside other people to get close to it.
With the most popular exhibitons, only the Tussaud’s photographers are allowed to take photos, and the Obama Oval Office tops that list, followed by the newest figure, racing legend Lewis Hamilton.
Despite admiration and excitement, bodily weariness abounds, and the lewd shenanigans of visitors – feeling Will Smith’s biceps, stroking David Beckham’s crotch, grinding on Shakira’s legs, posing for a photo with a head under Marilyn Munroe’s skirt – eventually lose their humour.
But the escape is near… just around that corner, just up that stairs, down that stairs, through this hallway… through that other throng of wax-star-worshippers.
Don’t forget to leave suggestions for new wax figures at the eventual end of the maze – and the obligatory souvenir shop, of course.
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