Saturday 23 June 2018

Get Aboard the Community Rail Partnership

Brighton Toy and Model Museum is enjoying some fantastic publicity thanks to our new sponsors and the Sussex Community Rail Partnership


Earlier this year we were incredibly proud and privileged to sign up with Brighton Station, becoming the first signatory to their Community Rail Partnership Agreement. Under this agreement we get to display a banner at the station entrance directing visitors and residents of Brighton and Hove to our venue, so whether you’re looking for us specifically, or you’re just visiting and looking for something to do, you know where we are. We also have a Swan Neck, a portable billboard which stands on the station concourse which directs visitors to Brighton toward our location.

We also have display cabinets in the booking office containing several items of our collection. Nobody likes queueing, and these displays offer a little something to look at and attract interest as you wait your turn. And it’s these display cabinets we’re looking to find sponsors for.

Annual Sponsorship Deals Bring Excellent Returns


We’re currently offering a one year sponsorship deal for £500. For this, not only will you get to display your company name in a location that is normally unavailable for advertising and marketing, you get a place on the Brighton Toy and Model Museum Sponsor’s Page (through testing we’ve found that links from our official museum site are incredibly good for SEO).

Jan Etches, Deputy Museum Manager and driving force behind getting Brighton Toy and Model Museum on board the Community Rail Partnership Agreement said “This is a fantastic opportunity to let people know where the museum is whilst creating partnerships with Brighton Railway Station and other local businesses.”

Extraordianary Opportunities


Brighton Station is the 9th busiest in the UK, outside London, and sponsorship would mean placing your company name on one of the cabinets. This space isn’t available to traditional display advertising as it is only for the use of Network Rail and their partners such as Govia Thameslink and Southern Rail. However, through your sponsorship you will be contributing to a Sussex Community Rail Partnership member, thereby allowing you to have your business name displayed alongside our exhibit.

To take up sponsorship, please call the Deputy Museum Manager, Jan Etches on 01273 749494 for more details and restrictions.

Saturday 9 June 2018

Two Halves of Guinness at the Museum

Anyone less than 50 (and many people older) will have seen Star Wars. As well as seeing the movies, most of us will have collected the toys, models and other merchandise which went along with the film’s success.

Trevor Littledale by remyhunterphotography.co.uk
One of the film’s main protagonists (the donor/mentor according to Todorov and Propp) was Obi Wan Kenobi, a mystical wizard cum knight tutor played by famed British character actor Alec Guinness. Despite having worked on stage and in film for decades, Guinness was famously worried that his part in Star Wars would be his defining role, leaving his portrayal of the entire D’Ascoyne family in Kind Hearts and Coronets, of Sidney Stratton in The Man in the White Suit, and even his playing of Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, for which he won an academy award, forgotten. According to Guinness’ son Matthew, when Sir Alec met a child fan who said he had seen the Star Wars ‘a hundred times’ he said to the young chap “Well, do you think you could promise never to watch it again?”

The one man play Two Halves of Guinness, performed by Trevor Littledale, finds us meeting Guinness in a cosy bar as he faces crippling insecurity after taking part in the creation of the Sci-Fi epic. Not only does it inspect the actor’s personal anxieties, it also looks at the relationship he had with other British acting luminaries such as Olivier and Coward, his conversion to Catholicism, his upbringing, the war, and the premonitions he often had, leading to the warning he gave James Dean on the night before his fatal car accident.

Littledale characterises Guinness perfectly, using miniscule body movements and changes in expression and voice to become another character within the monologue. The ‘two halves’ of the title refers to the two distinct sides of Guinness’ personality; the dark, anxious, insecure side brought about by being born illegitimate to an alcoholic mother and never really knowing who his father was, being taken constantly from digs to boarding houses while he was growing up, adding to his sense of vulnerability. The other half, the lighter side, looks at his life as an entertainer. How, once he’d decided to become an actor, he simply looked up John Gielgud in the directory and phoned him to ask for acting lessons. Gielgud was unable to oblige personally, but the two became firm friends.

The play is being performed in Brighton Toy and Model Museum, a space which lends itself well to the performance as Trevor feels that the proximity of the audience to the actor adds vital intimacy to the play as it unfolds.

For booking information and to buy tickets for the show when it is staged in October, simply follow the link to Eventbrite

Blog by Dan Cash, opinions are author's own.

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