“Can I send you an exclusive preview box of Bayeux Lager?”
Unless you’ve been seeking solace beneath a rock/digital detox lately, you’ll know that London has a VIP French guest in its midst. The Bayeux Tapestry is in town, and the clamour for tickets makes Harry Styles look positively unwanted.
As well as a chance to ogle what the Guardian raved as “a stupefying, thrilling, horrifying masterpiece”, the tapestry’s jaunt to the British Museum also weaves a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a healthy bit of marketing. Fun fact: if you put all the Bayeux-related marketing emails we’ve received in the past few weeks end-to-end, they’d measure 70 metres, the exact length of the Tapestry.
Londoners are cashing in on the almost-1,000-year-old masterpiece, and who can blame them. We probably made the bloody thing, after all*.
“There’s William the Conqueror on Westminster Bridge, leafing through a copy of HistoryExtra”
Suddenly, every corner of the city reveals another Norman-flavoured promotional ploy. Cross Westminster Bridge, and there’s William the Conqueror leaning against the balustrades, leafing through a copy of HistoryExtra. Sit down to afternoon tea, only to find your cheesecake’s got a miniature Bayeux Tapestry wrapped around it. Nip into the Museum Tavern across the road from the exhibition — having witnessed the Tapestry in all its stupefying, thrilling horror — to discover that a ‘Beer Tapestry’ (5/10 for that particular pun) has been hoisted up behind the bar.
London galleries which are conspicuously deficient in the Bayeux Tapestry department (i.e. not the British Museum) haven’t let that get in the way. Take the Guildhall Gallery, which is launching Beyond Bayeux: Tapestry Now**, the exhibition equivalent of a Harry Styles tribute act performing in a Wembley pub.
“After witnessing such an orgy of embroidered butchery, you’ll be in need of a drink”
Sitting prettiest of all is the British Museum’s gift shop, bulging with a treasure trove so rich in trinkets it’d overwhelm the Digging for Britain team: Bayeux Tapestry tea towel (£9.99), Bayeux Tapestry Christmas decoration (£13.99), Bayeux Tapestry Battle of Hastings feather quill pen (£19.99), Norman Ghost incense holder (me neither, £40), Bayeux Tapestry pewter tankard (£99), Bayeux Tapestry silk scarf (£125), Edward the Confessor and Harold ceramic ornament (£325). Perhaps there’s been a mad rush — on the morning the exhibition officially opens, the British Museum’s online gift shop is “currently under maintenance and should be back soon”.
Meanwhile, that Bayeux Lager — a collaboration between the British Museum and Battle Brewery — is available to quaff in the Museum’s cafes and restaurants. Well, after witnessing such an orgy of embroidered butchery, you’ll be in need of a drink.
“London mightn’t have witnessed a cultural mania like this since 1972”
London mightn’t have witnessed a cultural mania like this since 1972. Again, the British Museum was to thank/blame; its landmark exhibition of Tutankhamun treasures prompted 1.7 million people to queue around the block (not all at once), and snap up souvenirs like they were going out of fashion. To be fair, they were going out of stock. Replica jewellery in the gift shop sold out on opening day. “The English, normally phlegmatic about art,” wrote Time magazine, “greeted the event with ecstasies of Tutankhamenophilia. Tut appeared on posters, postcards, carrier bags and 56 million commemorative stamps.” London’s blockbuster exhibition era was born.
While some Bayeux cash-ins might be more cynical than others, who are we to judge. It’s refreshing to see people getting hopped up about something so innocently cultural so… what are the words I’m looking for… stupefying, thrilling and horrifying. So, the best of British Norman to anyone hoping to make a quick buck — and in the words of the late, great William the Conqueror, “Chaaaaaarge!”
*Well, maybe Canterbury.
**A free exhibition, I should point out.
