Yesterday Stuart, Darren and I went to see (experience?) the fabulous ABBA Super Troupers exhibition at the Southbank Centre on London's glitzy South Bank.We were promised never-before-seen items from the band's archive, personal notes, memorabilia, and iconic costumes.
**Spoilers*** The exhibition itself lasts an hour and consists of nine immersive rooms taking you on a guided ABBA-themed journey starting from a dark passageway where you play 'beat the intro' (Super Trouper), through a 1970s living room (Ring Ring), into a Brighton hotel room (Waterloo), through a wood, into a recording studio where you can sing (Dancing Queen), into a rainy night in Sydney (Mamma Mia), most bizarrely a night club toilet (Voulez-Vous), a lonely room (The Winner Takes It All), and finally lets you take your seat on a jet plane (Thank You For The Music).
The exhibition was perhaps a little light in some places on actual ABBA memorabilia but generally it more than made up for this in the sheer joy of the whole thing. Personally I loved reading the fan letters, the newspaper clippings and the copies of Jackie and Look-In.
Jarvis Cocker was the narrator throughout and pleasingly he more than once acknowledged ABBA's enthusiastic LGBT fan base.
If you are an ABBA fan it's definitely worth a visit. At worst it simply contextualises the years of their initial of success. At best it is fun, funny and left us beaming ear to ear.
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