20 Jul 2015
Against Captain's Orders is a groundbreaking collaboration between the National Maritime Museum and immersive theatre makers Punchdrunk Enrichment. It invites younger museum visitors on an adventure that will challenge their understanding of history. Now in a series of blogs the National Maritime Museum (NMM) and Punchdrunk (PD) come together again to discuss how the exhibition developed from initial concept stage to the first visitors through the door.
However, like all things that go Against Captain’s Orders these blogs aren’t quite what they seem, as the museum has agreed to Punchdrunk’s request to structure the series around an old museum myth, the apparent disappearance of curator Elinor Grey. After an inauspicious start to their exploration NMM feels some cold hard facts are long overdue. If you're new to the series we recommend you begin at the start here.
PD: Having been humbled by my school boy error outside the museum (see previous post here) I have handed the reins over to you. You’ve brought us here to the Nelson, Navy, Nation exhibition and specifically to some very smart-looking naval jackets. Which is all well and good, but I’m not entirely sure why.
NMM: All will become clear. Let’s start with a little exercise. You tell me as much as you know about us here at the Museum and I’ll do that same for you.
PD: OK.
NMM: You first.
PD: You’re the National Maritime Museum. You’re in Greenwich. Part of the Royal Museums Greenwich which also includes Cutty Sark, the Queen’s House and the Royal Observatory. You were opened in 1937 by King George VI who didn’t use the Stanhope entrance. You hold the most important collection in the world related to Britain at sea and have around two to two and a half million objects in your collection. You are always looking for new ways to engage with your visitors which led you, in 2013 to begin work on a collaboration with a very different company namely us, Punchdrunk Enrichment.
NMM: Great. My turn. You are Punchdrunk, or specifically Punchdrunk Enrichment, an immersive theatre company who have been producing work for over a decade in Britain and across the world. You inspire your audience into action, getting rid of conventional stages and seating and instead building entire worlds for your audience to explore. You invite them to build their own journeys by ensuring that the choice of where to go and what to watch is theirs alone.
PD: Well that’s right for Punchdrunk.
NMM: But you’re Punchdrunk Enrichment. Right. Punchdrunk Enrichment take this unique style of storytelling and applies it to learning environments creating transformative experiences that focus on an individual’s imagination and creativity.
PD: You’ve really been listening.
NMM: I wrote it down. It’s true though. It’s why this collaboration works. We need to find ways of inspiring our visitors, particularly the younger ones to engage with history. As competition builds for their attention we need to find other ways to bring those stories to life, grab hold of them and get them excited. You do that.
PD: This is turning into a proper love-in.
NMM: Very funny. So those are the facts of you and us. Maybe not every detail, but enough to get a picture right?
PD: I’d say so.
NMM: Now tell me about Elinor Grey. PD: Elinor Grey was a curator at the National Maritime Museum. Here. She worked here in the 1940s and 50s and then suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. That’s about it.
NMM: Exactly right except mostly wrong.
PD: That’s the story I heard.
NMM: That’s the story, yes. Or one of them, but where is your evidence? If I want to look into your background I can request documentation from you, find information online, look up reviews of your shows. Similarly with the museum our history is public record. The evidence is there. With Elinor...
PD: Not so much?
NMM: She is conspicuously absent from the records. Nothing about her, or her time here. Not even about her disappearance which is odd when you consider how big a mystery Bernie makes it out to be.
PD: Isn’t that exactly what makes it a mystery?
NMM: Ha, that’s the big difference between us. I see the lack of evidence, the near complete absence of any proof that an Elinor Grey existed, let alone disappeared and to me that means it never happened. For you it only deepens the mystery. You come looking for an exciting story so you find one. That’s not always where the evidence leads us.
PD: I take that point, for now at least, but there’s really nothing at all about Elinor?
NMM: Not entirely nothing. I found a reference to an E. Grey who started work here in 1948. Not clear if that was an Elinor or even a woman. Could have been an Edward.
PD: But it could have been an Elinor. Our Elinor! Anything else.
NMM: One thing. Which is why we’re here. This.
PD: The Octant?
NMM: Very good.
PD: I’ve been studying. Plus we nearly used it in the show.
NMM: Well when this Octant arrived at the museum it was received by one E. Grey.
PD: So it could have been signed for by Elinor.
NMM: Maybe, but if so it doesn’t help your mystery theory I’m afraid. This arrived in 1965. According to your story Elinor had disappeared long before then. Sorry you look disappointed.
PD: Not at all. In fact this only makes things more interesting.
NMM: Oh dear, how so?
PD: Elementary my dear Watson. Perhaps you’d join me on a trip to the Queen’s House?
NMM: But of course. Lead the way.
