Back before our Canterbury trip, but only catching up with now, Heather and I took in two sparkly seasonal light shows closer to home—one was entertaining, one left me a bit meh.

Time (And More)

First up was a trip to the Old Royal Naval College, somewhere we’d visited earlier in the year. This time we got a double whammy, as the ticket we’d bought for the main event also got us back into the Painted Hall to see a couple of installations by Peter Walker. The first of these, filling most of the hall itself, resembled nothing so much as a giant rendering of the sort of paper shaded floor lamps associated with Ikea in the day, though in this case the hung from the ceiling, slowly changing colour. Entitled Identity there’s an accompanying soundscape by David Harper.

At the far end of the hall sat Walker’s Connection, two giant hands pointing at each other bathed in the ever changing light of the previous sculpture. Interesting but not compelling.

Back downstairs, winding round the undercrofts and tunnels before heading back up to the chapel, colonnades and courtyard, was the large scale installation Time, a serious of immersive projections by Luxmuralis (a collaboration of the aforementioned Walker and Harper) who’s worked we’d enjoyed at St Paul’s Cathedral. Within the buildings the work draw one in, with swirling effects almost like standing in a kaleidoscope at times, and more than one moment of jumping at a sense of motion.

Once outside, the piece calmed, and lost some of its attraction. Also, if there was any story being told through the projected images and text it very quickly got lost, leaving just a sense of a theme but little else. Still entertaining though.

Alice And The Queen’s Beasts

The second light event was at the less illustrious but still historic venue of nearby Hall Place. We were there for what billed itself as a Alice In Wonderland based lantern light show, produced by Same Sky. The Queen’s Beasts part comes from it winding round the formal gardens of the house which include topiary reproductions of the coronation Queen’s Beasts of 1953. The whole experience included some sparsely scattered live actors (we suspect some students at the local performing arts colleges got a pay day).

To be honest though the links were, at times, tenuous. Beginning with a journey through a not very tunnel like rabbit hole we were confronted by a strange Queen of Hearts and a sparse room, with a hunt (I think) for some tarts through a wooden case of drawings obviously repurposed form some other thing (there were still bits of paper clinging to it). That was, frankly, strange and boring, as was the adjacent room with a load of semi-illuminated clock faces.

Outside a even more peculiar live acted Cheshire cat was disturbing, before we reached a tea party with frankly the most disturbing of Alices. From there the connection to Alice (or Queen’s Beast) became more and more strained. A large phoenix (there’s always a phoenix), some random birds, what I think were mushrooms but may have been UFOs. At least we got the inevitable playing card soldiers and chess pieces.

I think part of the problem is that I just don’t find this style of lantern lighting very interesting, or good (I’m reminded of my reaction to some of the things we saw at Crystal Palace a few years ago. The whole thing ended with a slightly depressed it seemed Dodo, wishing us goodnight. Frankly the farmer’s market on the way out was much more interesting.