On the face of it, this should have been great. There were plenty of sculptures and the weather wasn't too hot, and yet.... somehow the park managed to remove any semblance of fun from the visit with their constant preaching. It starts at the main entrance, 'Oh look, there's an enormous Trans Former....', with a Ukraine flag. Okay. Then on the way up the drive we see a sculpture of Kim Jong Il riding a nuclear missile which is kinda fun, except you can't look at it without being assailed by banners demanding 'NO WAR' and decrying the number of dictatorships in the world.
Thankfully they couldn't find anything preachy to say about the cool Terminator crouching on a car further up the drive, but rest assured this was but a temporary respite. No sooner do you get past the three headed dragon made to celebrate King Charles' coronation than you come across a massive 'Iron Man' with a sign saying 'STOP OVER CONSUMING'. Oh do fuck off.
Truth be told most of the best stuff is situated along the drive on the way in, so if you really wanted to you could just drive in, turn around at the top and drive out again, this will avoid you having to pay or having to visit the thoroughly depressing 'Extinction Trail'. Apparently even the organisers realise this is quite depressing, so they pepper it with Minions and a solitary M&M man (red in case you were wondering).
Seriously though, we know animals are in danger on every continent, but constantly slapping me round the face with it from the moment I arrive to the moment I leave isn't making for a fun day. Of course, it's not all dying animals, there is a surfeit of dragons... who, let's not forget aren't extinct because they never existed in the first place.
NO.
THEY REALLY DIDN'T.
Admittedly some of the sculptures are really impressive, the giant mecha-Gorilla is one example, and I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy all the Marvel characters. But the thing is, there's no sense of discovery. When you visit the Yorkshire Sculpture Park each exhibit has it's own space and you need to walk between them. Here it's like a 'Sculpture Wharehouse', three dragons for £5000 and we'll throw in a 20ft high Darth Vader holding a sign warning against AI.
I did like the Alien mirror though, that was very cool and the real horse cuddling up to a steel one was very cute. But the shop was rammed with tat, and even when we did find something that was actually quite nice (a flat steel cut-out of a cat) it was reduced from £150 to only £99! I mean, it was nice and for £20 I might even have bought one.... but ninety-nine pounds? Do me a favour.
A rare moment of humour in this rather humourless place!
As if they hadn't already depressed us enough, they then scattered 'NO PICNICS' signs across every bench. Because, they say, they need the revenue from the cafe to keep going. Fair enough in the winter when they don't charge to enter, but right now the place was packed with people chucking £7.50 at them and paying £3 to park. Presumably somebody buys a £99 wall cat every now and again too.
The Allegedly 'World Famous' Spoon Gorilla...
And the 'World Famous Knife Angel' was nowhere to be seen. Having wandered around the whole thing we asked at the information desk only to be told it was currently on tour in 'Harlow'. Brilliant. There was a box to put any unwanted guns in though, a pity I forgot to bring my Uzi 9mm, I rarely use that these days. Oh and the spoon Gorilla. Not nearly as impressive as it sounds. It's got nothing on Joana Vascenselos' saucepan lid shoes, that's for sure.
I think what was missing was any semblance of 'art'. Unlike the other sculpture parks we've been to, everything is very literal. Here's a dragon, here's a giraffe, here's 400 deer... here's Iron Man, here's the Hulk, here's another dragon. And gorillas... why so many gorillas? At least the Terminator looked like it was animated, most of the sculptures looked very static and unexciting.
Still, the Trip Advisor reviewers seem to be universally positive so clearly we are just miserable cunts. Maybe no one else actually bothered to read all the preachy nonsense, they were probably too busy making straight for the cafe, just past the enormous portrait of Roger Moore as James Bond (for no apparent reason). Still, all in all, I'd have to say it was still a lot better than Bolsover Castle, which remains the least interesting 'day out' of all time.
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