Doctor Who Experience London Olympia: a really well done exhibition and fun day out
This is a review of the Doctor Who Exhibition, known officially as the Doctor Who Experience, that was first running ay London Olympia before moving to a more permanent home in Cardiff (where Dr Who is filmed).
 Doctor Who Experience Exhibtion |
 Doctor Who Experience Exhibtion Entrance |
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 Doctor Who Experience London Olympia: Doctor costumes |
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 Doctor Who Experience London Olympia: Tardis |
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 Doctor Who Experience London Olympia: Daleks |
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 Doctor Who Experience London Olympia: Some monsters |
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 Doctor Who Experience London Olympia: Tardis |
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 Doctor Who Experience London Olympia: Gift Shop |
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The Doctor Who Experience opened at the London Olympia Exhibition centre in March 2011 and was here for some months before moving to a more permanent home in Cardiff, which is where the Doctor Who series is filmed. If you are even a slight Doctor Who fan, I would strongly recommend that you try and see it. It is clever, fun, entertaining and even (for younger ones) a little bit scary too.
I visited it with another big Dr Who fan and one other who was mildly against going as they thought it would be dull. They, I think, probably ended up enjoying it even more – and certainly as much – as the two of us who were fans.
Most of the visitors when we went were kids and their Dads or Mums. This makes sense as the TV show is very much really a family show, and the experience caters to this – and the testament to how well they did is is the fact that kids ran around excitedly gasping and excitedly reacting to the various parts of the experience and the exhibition after it. If you watch the video that I made (at the bottom of this posting), you will see the kids running about doing just this!
The event has 2 main elements to it.
First there is the “experience” that you enter first. This is a walk through show where you watch videos and then very cleverly and with some surprises you enter different chambers and rooms that take you on an adventure to help save the Doctor. These are really well done and include entering the Tardis, a room of Daleks and then an amazing 3-D experience. The rooms are large and the experience impressive and very well done. The footage and video of Doctor as he talks to you and guides you is funny and high energy. Matt Smith shows what a great doctor he is.
Then after the experience is a huge series of exhibits grouped by:
– All of the Doctor through the ages costumes along with a Tardis and wax figure of the current doctor (Matt Smith). In this area is a green screen area where you can have photos made of you with various backgrounds.
– A massive copy of the David Tennant Tardis and costumes from the companions from his series.
– Monsters. A huge collection of different monsters from the series and their costumes. There is a large collection of Daleks and Davros.
– Props from the 2010 Christmas Special, along with an area where you learn and can watch yourself walking like some of the monsters like the Cybermen and the Scarecrows.
Then finally is a huge gift shop and then a tea room.
I was excited about going to the experience, and was really very impressed and really enjoyed this. A few years ago I had gone to a Star Trek one in Hyde Park that I liked – but this was much better.
It costs £18 for an adult, less for children and you book entry in a 30 minute slot and they did not overfill the event and so you felt you had space to enjoy it.
Highly recommended!
See all my photos from The Doctor Who Experience: click here
The official website: click here
Watch the 5 minute video that I made of the event:
