To the opening of the new London version of the Jane Austen Experience at 11 John Princes Street, just round the corner from Oxford Circus. This is an outpost in the capital of a popular attraction that has been open for some considerable time in Bath, a city in which Austen lived for five years.
The Bath version gets generally positive reviews. There are actors/performers in Regency-style costumes who give an introductory talk about Austen’s life, some stuff on video, a chance to dress up, a tearoom, information about her works and their historical context, and about her life in Bath, and a waxwork of the author. (And, of course, a shop, for essential Jane Austen-related gew-gaws.)
The London site aims to replicate most of this (without the tearoom), but I’m afraid to say that it left me completely cold.
The house itself (built in 1829, so squeaking in as legitimately Georgian) is a very nice space, and care has been taken to reproduce the wallpaper and general interior decor of the period, but seems rather bereft of furnishings. One starts on the third floor with a talk by one of becostumed characters, then on the next floor down one can dress in period style clothing and have a photo taken with ‘Pemberley’ as a backdrop.
Then you can try your hand at writing with a quill and ink, sniff some scents, take a selfie with the Jane Austen waxwork and, er, that’s pretty much it. There are some information boards up which give literary and historical context (although one of these had a wonderful misspelling of ‘genteel’ as ‘gentile’, which put an entirely different spin on the description), some copies or reproductions of Austen- or Regency-related artefacts (but nothing actually of the period), and – of course – there’s a shop.
The people behind it are at pains to point out that it is an ‘experience’ not a museum, but even so, for the best part of twenty quid for a ticket, it seems a bit empty and a bit pointless, a dressing-up space for some Jane Austen cosplay.
And to be honest, the location doesn’t help. It is a lovely house, and if one stepped out of it in, say, Covent Garden or Bloomsbury one would have emerged into a street of elegant Georgian properties. Here you drop back into the real world – grubby, noisy, commercial – of 21st century Oxford Circus. I’m sorry to rain on their parade, but unless you’re the sort of person who wants to spend £19.50 to dress up for fifteen minutes, I’d give it a miss.
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