I was pleased to feature alongside all the other rogues in the gallery!"Ī gallery is a good description, seeing as most of the museum's 323 figures, which include those of Robert Emmet, W.B. "I mean it's about 10 or 11 years ago at this stage, but I was presenting the Eurovision at the time with Michelle Rocha, so I suppose my name was more in the headlines than usual. "But I think to be asked to feature in such an exhibition is rather an honour." Pat Kenny still feels flattered. So how does it feel to be famous under scrutiny, to have your nostril-hairs poked when there's nothing you can do about it? "I thought of all the opportunities which people would have to throw rotten eggs and tomatoes at my image, and me not able to do anything about it in return," Gay Byrne remembers. There are six full-time staff, including one wax sculptor, P.J. The museum receives on average 100 people a day, but during the summer this figure can stretch to almost 2,000. As a family attraction we're very popular, and indeed for school tours from Ireland and England - it's word of mouth really," Murray says. "You're always a little disappointing in the flesh because you can't be the edited version of yourself" - Mel Brooks) ![]() We're very patriotic in here! Maybe we should put in a few more world leaders." I think we have to have our own identity. "I don't think it's right really to compare them. "Tussaud's are open 170 years and we're open 16 years," Murray points out. Kept in an area known as "The Separate Room", (so that visitors with a nervous disposition could avoid them), the characters were soon gathered under the "Chamber of Horrors" title - to this day a synonym for all things bloody and dark.Ĭertainly, the National Wax Museum takes its cue from Madame Tussaud's, but the Irish operation is keen to play down comparisons. These included the death masks of French nobility and the guillotine blade used to behead Marie Antoinette. Disembarking in Dublin Port after a turbulent sea journey which saw a substantial portion of her collection lost to the Irish Sea, she set up residence at 16, Clarendon Street, exhibiting "everyday the most beautiful collection of figures executed from life" in the then Shakespeare Gallery on Exchequer Street.Īlongside portraits of villains and murderers, Tussaud exhibited her collection of relics from the French Revolution - general articles of gore which proved extremely popular with the public. The original queen of wax, Madame Tussaud (nee Marie Grosholtz) was born in Strasbourg, France in 1761, and honed her craft taking death masks of guillotined prisoners during the French Revolution. Perhaps it was the reputation of men such as these that brought the inimitable Madame Tussaud to Ireland in 1804. You haven't touched Pat Ingoldsby down there, have you? He's crazy cold." "Are they or are they not? The wax is absolutely freezing cold - maybe that's an attraction. "It's a weird feeling you get, like looking at or touching a corpse," says Kay Murray, administrator of the National Wax Museum. "I've never seen that side of me before!" Minogue held her pout for a second, cameras flashing, before responding that it was weird looking at herself from behind. "What does it feel like?" the antipodean superstar was asked. In a recent BBC documentary, entitled Wax- works of the Rich and Famous, Kylie Minogue was interviewed posing for a photoshoot beside her wax double at Madame Tussaud's. And it's not just the visitors who are thrown either. You can secretly touch the Pope's bum, exchange ironies with Bono, stick your fingers up at Freddie Kruger - you get closer, in a sense, than you ever could to the real thing. Waxworks allow Joe Public to waltz around his heroes, peering into their eyes, ears, up their noses, without having to deal with any such notions as respect and privacy. ![]() But most of all there's that itchy, niggling sense that it's them - except it's not really them. Then there's the way you're overcome with that irresistible temptation to touch, in some cases to taste, and occasionally, to steal. For starters, the figures look like they've been hewn from a mix of melted-down Pot Noodle and marmalade, and touched up with a dab of nicotine. There is something vaguely creepy about viewing a likeness in wax. ![]() (A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to be- come well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognised - Fred Allen)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |