I visited the original May The Toys Be With You exhibition at this same museum, then called Leicester’s New Walk Museum & Art Gallery back in 2018. The original exhibition, currently exhibiting at Beverley Art Gallery, is heavily focused on vintage Star Wars toys, posters and artwork.
This all-new exhibition instead focuses on one-off prototype items, striking star pieces, iconic poster art, dioramas, and much more, with over 400 fantastical items on display, across all eras of Star Wars.
The exhibition is housed upstairs in the museum, in the same room as the original exhibition was in 2018. With its grand entrance of columns and glass doors, featuring a large decal of the May The Toys Be With You logo, now in red, to differentiate this new exhibition from the original one that features a yellow logo.
Stepping through the doors, you are greeted with a large information board giving a brief history of Star Wars toys and merchandising.
Moving to the left you’ll see the first 21 vintage Kenner Star Wars figure and cardbacks for 12 of them. The next few display cases houses some very unique items from the history of Palitoy and Kenner. Highlights include a bottle of commemorative champagne from the opening of a new Palitoy distribution centre, a Palitoy staff tie, a Kenner Tooling Manual, and a commemorative Lucasfilm THX paperweight.
As you continue around the display cases you see the whole collection of rare, promotional and prototype items, as well as shop and theatre displays and posters, making it a totally different experience to the original exhibition.
The back of the room also has a craft area for children, with an activity sheet for them to find selected items in the exhibit.
This all new exhibition opened at Leicester Museum & Art Gallery on 25th April and will be on display until 06th September, with free admission.
For more information visit: https://www.leicestermuseums.org/MayTheToysBeWithYou