Did Londoners have more fun in the past?

In the 1960s, theatre director Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price developed a utopian vision for a ‘Fun Palace’ in London. Inspired by the lost Thameside pleasure gardens of centuries past, the Fun Palace was intended as a space where working-class Londoners could participate in the delights of the new age, play with technological gadgets and create their own art. To promote the idea, Littlewood produced a film called Pleasure (1964), featuring Victor Spinetti, Brian Murphy and Barbara Windsor as clowns, and captured the different ways Londoners enjoyed themselves at the time. Watch outtakes from the film and explore a recreation of the exhibition from its launch party, before adding your own thoughts on the possibilities for pleasure in London life today.