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What's your hump day saying? If you need the extra push this mid-week, we've got some cool things for you to check out in your robe and slippers. And that's what our new series is all about: bringing you a daily dose of the things we’re loving right now including food, music, movies, workouts and more – all of which you can also experience from the comfort and safety of your sweet digs during this circuit breaker period. We've also got a 28-day plan to keep you busy and entertained throughout the month too.
Yesterday, we jumped out of bed for free Apple TV+ shows, Cyril Wong's new book This Side of Heaven and Boutique Fairs Singapore's online marketplace. And to keep the work week exciting, we're going on a history tour back in time before the Europeans' arrival in Singapore, supporting local bars virtually, and joining a watch party featuring a popular local theatre production.
An Old New World: Digital Edition
Photograph: National Museum of Singapore
Calling all history buffs (us included): starting from today, the National Museum of Singapore's Bicentennial exhibition, An Old New World: From the East Indies to the Founding of Singapore, 1600s – 1819, goes online with an immersive digital version. The virtual exhibition transports you back in time to the bustling trading port of the East Indies that drew the attention of the Dutch and British East India Companies. The East Indies was the centre of the spice trade, comprising the Malay Peninsula and Indonesian Archipelago, but the European arrival is only a fraction of its long history.
Embark on your online adventure, uncovering the other factors that led to the events of 1819 by selecting either one of the two modes of navigation: guided and self-exploratory. We'd recommend opting the guided tour which has curators Daniel Tham and Iskander Mydin narrating about Knowledge and Power and Seeing the Indigenous, as you explore the featured artefacts and surrounding showcases. Zoom in, read on and re-discover history in this virtual exhibition. Come on, learning is loads more fun when it's accompanied by an equally interesting backstory.
James Dyson Foundation Challenge Cards
Whether you're stuck at home with a restless kid – or you are the restless kid yourself – combat those humdrum hours with James Dyson Foundation Challenge Cards where you can learn how to pierce a balloon without popping it or make raisins dance. Always up for a challenge, we've downloaded the home-based learning kit via jamesfoundation.com which features 44 easy-to-follow challenges that introduce rookies to the world of engineering and science. With the help of video tutorials, we're channelling Bill Nye the Science Guy, en route to building a cardboard boat from scratch, keeping a marble rolling for a minute, and making a homemade periscope to spy on our housemates – kids included. So gather your mini engineers and create some cool stuff. As the saying goes: busy hands, happy minds.
Those Who Can't, Teach
Photograph: The Necessary Stage
Full disclosure: since Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Show Must Go On! and theatre companies such as the National Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe made their full-length staged shows available on the world wide web, we have been setting our alarms to witness the magic of theatre through our screens. And now, there's more to get our inner drama queens excited about – Singapore's very own The Necessary Stage is joining the virtual bandwagon by hosting an online watch party tomorrow, April 16 at 8pm, featuring one of its most successful plays Those Who Can't, Teach.
First staged in 1990 and subsequently in 2010 to full houses at the Singapore Arts Festival, the play looks at the madcap lives of ever-suffering teachers and troublemaking students – with often hilarious results. Add the dreaded parents into the mix, and that's a whole lot of drama. Join us and other theatre lovers as we laugh and cry together over the antics of Teck Liang and his friends from MPSS, much to Mrs Phua's dismay. After the show, there'll be a post-show dialogue with director Alvin Tan and playwright Haresh Sharma, as well as cast members from the 2017 production – namely Ghafir Akbar, Joshua Lim, Karen Tan, Lian Sutton and Siti Khalijah Zainal. With only 100 spots available, we'd recommend you to sign up online by today. You can also watch the full production at your own time – or ten times over – until April 30 here. You know we are.