Novelty Automation
Novelty Automation
1a Princeton St, London, WC1R 4AX
Free
A 5-minute walk from Holborn station, Novelty Automation is a small arcade filled with marvellous inventions to help tickle even the most deadpan of Londoners. Tim Hunkin started his seaside arcade ‘The Under The Pier Show’ in 2001, with a vision to redesign the concept of arcades with his new and original inventions.
Arcades are now in strong decline, due to the rise of technology and advancements of home gaming (losers). Novelty Automation thus stands as a part of London history, as well as some light hearted fun. The themes are bizarre: you can go on a 5-minute mini-break, peek into some celeb’s homes and do some spying, get your foot examined, ask a intellectual looking chap to decide whether or not a certain object is art, experience a lunar eclipse, go through a divorce and get some well needed love advice – amongst other things.
‘Novelty’ is defined "the quality of being new, original or unusual". Whilst the engineering of the inventions is far more old than new, they are new in their ideas and completely original from the unusual themes chosen. Every review I have seen for Novelty Automation is stellar, showing that despite this being a dying industry, people still want to come and see it – even more so due to it’s rarity in our modern world – nostalgia always finds a way of creeping in.
Novelty Automation is open from 11am-6pm from Wednesday to Saturday, with a late opening until 8pm on Thursday. When I went after work one Thursday, the place was pretty full with post-work almost-end-of-the-week thrill seekers. Although pretty much full, the place did not seem cramped despite the small size of the venue. We still managed to have a go on almost all of the machines – and got 10 tokens each (costing £20 in total).
Two machines which particularly stood out to me was the Chiropodist – actually Tim Hunkin’s first ever arcade machine. For one token, a peculiar and unnerving looking woman drops down to examine your foot – which you have placed, bare, in a dark black hole. I have no idea what Tim Hunkin uses to give the effect of the woman feeling your foot but it is horribly ticklish and actually quite scary! As you can tell by the following series of photo’s I didn’t like it too much…
Another machine was one which Tom had a go on, called i-Zombie, where you have to use levers to avoid awful people coming towards you engrossed in their phones. The key is to not bump into any of the i-Zombies and see how addicted to your phone you actually are. In order to test this, the machine asks you to place you phone on a stand below your crotch. Whilst you are playing the game, your phone gets confiscated until the end where you are told you won’t get it back for 5 hours. It’s actually shameful how scared I was at the concept of not being with my phone (yes, he put my phone in instead of his – typical).
Novelty Automation takes the piss out of our pretentious and technologically obsessed world in a highly entertaining and interactive way. It’s exactly what all us grumpy Londoners need – to go and play some games, out of the house, socially, and not take ourselves too seriously. A trip to Novelty Automation is vital, if not to cleanse yourself of the modern world, then to have effortless laughs with a few pals one evening.
OVERALL RATING: ****
http://www.novelty-automation.com/
