What would you do if you had a museum all to yourselves for an evening? We find out in the latest episode of this series as we bring you our One Night at The Natural History Museum review.
Alex Brooker, Josh Widdicombe and Aisling Bea spend an epic night at the Natural History Museum, playing hide-and-seek among the exhibitions, raiding the gift shop, and making gruesome discoveries…
After the rather engaging opening episode where the gang had Alton Towers all to themselves Alex and Josh are now joined by another special guest in Comedian and Actor Aisling Bea as they explore the absolutely spectacular Natural History Museum, and yes you guessed it, they have it all to themselves!
The main talking point that many shared after the Alton Towers episode aired (including my own thoughts) was that the group didn’t really do a great deal when given the opportunity to have a theme park all to themselves.
Managing only 4 rides and messing around in the arcades for their 10 hour stay within the park many jumped on social media to complain about just how little they achieved in all of that time.
With rides being out of the question inside the Natural History Museum it begs the question, what on earth could you get up to inside a museum if you had it all to yourselves?
The answer to that question being, not much!
With Roisin the first celebrity guest in the opening episode being quite reluctant to do, well, just about anything it was refreshing to see Aisling jump head first into just about everything. Well, everything you can do in a museum.
Granted a museum is a much more relaxed and mundane experience to that of a theme park but who in their right mind thought 3 celebs staying in a museum would be fun for the Great British Public to watch?
I must admit that seeing a museum on the list of places when the episode synopsis was released was certainly a head scratcher.
Unless all of the artefacts are coming to life in front of your very eyes in a very Night at the Museum fashion then everything else is going to be very… dull.
Throw 3 comedians into the museum and this show comes to life despite its static surroundings but how long could they maintain my interest, in a museum?
There’s no real historical knowledge or wisdom given to me throughout, I’m watching three comedians in a museum, that’s about it.
The opening 15 minutes were certainly more a taste of patience than interest.
As usual with the structure of the show texts are sent to the group for them to take park in numerous challenges around the museum.
The texts come as a welcome escape because the second the group enter the museum we’re just watching them look at exhibits, standing and staring…. And scooters.
Yes, scooters. The perfect addition to any museum exploration and to get around the absolutely huge space in some style.
What I noticed straight away before the group play hide and seek is that despite speaking to the camera now and then I felt somewhat detached from the group.
I remember the episode last Christmas where Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett and Tom Allen were locked in Hamleys toy shop and it was a joyous experience full of fun and laughter and we were all involved as a collective as audience and celebs combined and shared in the fun.
This time around and given the more sedated surroundings it just feels as though we’re watching those three meander around a museum with the fun parts not entirely shared with us, which defeats the object of any viewing entertainment.
It’s a very detached experience for the opening 15-20 minutes or so as I came very close to turning it off.
Resisting my urge to turn it off and clinging onto the fact that I will persevere and watch the entirety of the show to give my thoughts upon its conclusion, I soldiered on through the show and the insane shaky cam footage during a game of hide and seek.
This footage had me questioning the production budget and why they’re not stabilising high-end cameras when my little old iPhone 11 Pro does a solid job of doing that whilst running.
About 25 minutes into the show and Aisling comes up with a line that we were all thinking during the Alton Towers episode and this one.
“We’re not supposed to be doing what the public do when they come, we should be going around snooping”
YES Aisling! I knew I liked you!
The show steps up a gear now as we actually get to explore sections of the museum you wouldn’t otherwise see. Granted its mostly corridors and behind the scenes offices we do get to see some goodies, eventually, in the strictly off limit basement.
Sadly, no aliens were found but there was an abundance of wet specimens for them to explore.
Like a crazed scientists laboratory the group explore all of these erm… ‘pickled?’ Creatures.
I must say this wasn’t a great advert for the Natural History Museum unless you’re a couinnesuir of stuffed animals.
I remember my trip to the museum a few years ago and out of the 80 million objects that the museum has, I only enjoyed about five of them, genuinely.
The fact that this trio have kept me watching from start to finish at an attraction that nearly bored me into a coma is an absolute miracle.
I find my local museum (The Potteries Museum in Stoke) to be a lot more entertaining with its variety and utilising the space that they have very well indeed.
The Natural Museum just looks like a lot of empty space taken up with giant hanging models, a few rocks (albeit impressive rocks) and stuffed animals.
Compared to the first episode this group dynamic was certainly more entertaining. I just wish that Aisling featured in one of theme park episodes within the series so we could see the chemistry of the trio put into a more exciting attraction experience.
One Night in The Natural History Museum is certainly a case of the chosen attraction letting the premise of the show down. A location where you can’t really get up to much without damaging a priceless item and it certainly seems as though restrictions behind the scenes stopped this episode from being something worth watching.
Thankfully our three stars kept me hooked enough to last until the finale but the quicker I forget about this episode, the better.
If this was an advert for the public to come visit the museum, then it’s done a great job of making me want to stay well clear.
One Night in The Natural History Museum review by Sean Evans
Our Rating
Summary
Sadly, an episode let down by its surroundings and through no fault of our wonderful lead stars there just isn’t a great deal they can do in an empty museum that wouldn’t result in an insanely big insurance case.
Quite a tough episode to endure let alone review, I’d certainly love to go back in time to that production meeting and spit my water out when someone around a table came up with the idea that filming 3 celebs walk (or scooter) around a museum overnight would be a good idea.
