Probably the most extraordinary exhibition to have opened in London in an age. Tom Jeffreys is a little overwhelmed.
Sometimes it's a struggle putting an experience into words. And when something's as beautiful and surprising and full of wonder and delight and joy as Enchanted Palace, then it's even harder. For a start there's just so much going on – in every cranny lurks discovery, magic pops its head out from every corner – but it's also the emotions engaged, ones perhaps buried since the adult replaced the child. Even at the media view – that time when po-faced critics ponder their press releases and scrawl jagged notes – there is abundant joy and wide-eyed wonder on every face.
Kensington Palace, the former home of many a royal personage, from William and Mary to George II, the infant Queen Victoria to Diana, Princess of Wales, is being refurbished. Whilst this takes place, the palace has been transformed into this, the magical Enchanted Palace. It's the work of acclaimed theatre group Wildworks, in collaboration with the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Jones, William Tempest, and Aminaka Wilmont. The results are truly wonderful.
Stealing secretly up the servants' staircase, and past a surprisingly placed tree, one enters the Room of Royal Sorrows, designed by Aminaka Wilmont. It's utterly dazzling and sort of knocks you sideways with that form of elegant sadness that royalty must perforce excel in. The room speaks of Queen Anne's fourteen pregnancies, none of which survived birth. In dark, aqua-lit night, emerges the form of a bed. The princess Anne is held above it by a waving swathe of sea-like drapery. A mirrored side-table is aclutter with glass vials, each a stoppered tear-catcher. The palace's old floorboards – with mirrored overlay in places – underpin a sense of forlornly creaking beauty.
Other highlights include the Privy Chamber, hung with exotic creations by acclaimed milliner Stephen Jones; an embroidered throne – the Seat of Power – in which one's voice resonates around with royal might; Echo Morgan's internally lit Dress of the World on wheels and her Cabinet of Curiosities, crammed with wonderful objects like Hannah Terry's intricate Flying Machines and Angela Singer's florally embellished stuffed fox; and The King's Grand Staircase, down which veiled lanterns, autumn leaves, and a flowing Vivienne Westwood dress that seems to stride purposefully onwards of its own accord.
Elsewhere, one of Lady Diana's dresses is given a white feather halo, glass vitrines display children's shoes and booties and kid gloves and bonnets, and little baby footprints mark a path across the floorboards. A tiara sparkles, a feral child hides among jewels and pelts. A ring, a rat, a rook. 10,000 toy soldiers are deployed – you can scythe through their ranks with a rubber boulder. All the while, oddly costumed Detectors bustle around the palace, chanting, singing, carrying out their orders. “The master of the great wardrobe,” a chanted phrase echoes out, with increasing urgency and desperation. A wolf howls, deep in a mirrored forest.
Perhaps the most striking section is The Cupola Room, taken over by fashion label Boudicca. The centre-piece of the room is an monumentally grand clock set upon a dais, to which the designers have responded in a manner that's simultaneously dramatic and sensitive. Stunning dress designs in gold and silver hang suspended from regal chandeliers. Structurally influenced by the clock's intricate horological mechanisms, these incredible pieces cast complex shadows across sculptures and blinded windows. It's a response both grand and delicate.
But I think, for me, the most delightful part is the bedroom of the baby princess who grew into the indomitable Queen Victoria. She lies, one presumes, out of sight atop a vast pile of mattresses. One of the Detectors reads bed-time stories from a high and laddered chair. Pages of books stretch around the room, the wallpaper emblazoned with buzzy little birds. In the corner of the ceiling, they seem to flock together, merge and escape in the form of an enchanting paper-crane dress by William Tempest. There's humour and charm, but also melancholy and longing. It's about childhood, duty, freedom, the unfettered potential of dream-time, and escape. Upon becoming Queen, Victoria never returned to this room.
In the last room, A Room of Dancing Shadows, stands a bird-cage broken open: wings are spread, the princess escapes. It aptly encapsulates the sense of sadness that percolates through this magical adventure. A princess never chooses her strange existence. At the very end stands a mirror. Scrawled upon it: “Congratulations! You have reached the end of your quest.” But rather than pride or joy, it fills me with sadness. I can't quite bear to leave.
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