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There’s one crucial difference between the new Museum of Illusions and the already open Twist Museum and Paradox Museum: it’s on Tottenham Court Road, while they are (respectively) on Oxford Street and Brompton Road.
Beyond that it has to be said that there’s relatively little in it: all three offer a fairly similar experience of a series of interactive displays and large scale classic optical illusions that will make you give a little ‘huh’; they’re diverting for all ages, but particularly for children; you’ll get some neat photos out of them, be that via classic forced perfective trick – you’d better believe there’s a Beuchet chair – or just the good old infinity room. Plus loads more diverting fun: a giant kaleidoscope! A mirror trick that makes it looks like you’re climbing the front of 10 Downing Street! A table in which you’ll come face to face with eight reflections of yourself, all seemingly joining you at the table. A vortex tunnel! An infinity tunnel! Basically, every reflection-based trick in the book you can think of (though it has to be said, I could think of most of them because I’d seen them at the other museums).
I don’t want to be aggressively cynical about the Museum of Illusions because my kids had fun, and I did get some good photos. And, as much as anything, as a global chain it well predates its London rivals: the first branch opened in Zagreb in 2015, and now there are over 70, in 28 countries (the London location being the second in the UK after Manchester). I would assume the slightly awkward ‘Twist’ and ‘Paradox’ names probably came about because ‘Illusion’ had already been globally trademarked – maybe they all came up with broadly the same idea independently, but the original team behind the Museum of Illusions clearly came up with it first. So let nobody accuse MOI of being bandwagon chasers.
It’ll distract you for around an hour or so, there are nice clear displays explaining the history and science behind the illusions, the price stacks up perfectly competitively with its rivals, a seven-year-old is unlikely to question why you’re ponying up for this rather than go to one of London’s numerous free actual museums, and it can very easily be combined with a quick trip to the nearby, free Outernet, which isn’t really a day out in and of itself but will occupy the kids for another precious ten minutes.
I guess I could get onto a high horse about not wanting our city to get too full of generic tourist attractions that might dissuade a tourist from going to, e.g. the Tate Modern or British Museum. But I think the more gracious thing to say is that the Museum of Illusion is a great example of This Sort of Thing, and that three is probably quite enough for London.