Museum for the world of toys

by PAULA DAVIES
WALK into Nash House any time between now and mid-February and you will find yourself in one of the most imaginative, entertaining exhibitions staged in London.
Play Orbit is the rather grandiose name given to this display of toys. games and "playables" by people who are not professionally involved with the design of playthings.
Jasia Reichardt, director of the exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, invited IOU artists to, make any toy they could think up provided it did not measure more than six feet in any direction which would stand up to the kind of treatment meted out by children.
Fragile materials were obviously out and the children themselves, by coming to the exhibition and playing with the toys, were to be the judges.
The exhibition has been divided into three parts, a museum section of objects which can only be looked at rather than handled, a section of table toys, puzzles and constructional toys to be played with as much as the adults and children want, and a third section which amounts to a free-for-all of huge. imaginative toys for kids to play in, on and around.
Not all the artists stuck to the letter of the law on fragility and in the end so many different organ isations and colleges of art sent in toys that the show varies from time to time due, not only to breakages, but to new ideas.
The computer-operated toy which played a typical computer non-melody and switched hanging blue balls on and off amounted to a modern museum piece which was touched at its peril and there was a constant stream of frantic attendants trying to keep little fingers off the programming panel.
Our small kids were far too frightened to touch it anyway and hated the noise so we moved off rapidly to the table toys and puzzles where the boxes linked by hinges into a kind of modern snake were the chief attraction closely followed by the magnetised letters and shapes on metal sheets.
The only trouble there was when Candida tried to spell her name and found a second "a" and a second "d" missing.
I loved the lit-up chess set and the Executive Noughts and Crosses. Made of large lumps,
of perspex noughts and thick metal crosses this is an ideal game for small children never mind the so-called executives.
"Where are the things we can play in?" asked our younger daughter after she discovered that she wasn't allowed to play with the John Betjeman-faced teddy bears and couldn't remove the hatchets from the macabre His and Hers do-it-yourself murder kit carrying the suitable• warning that it was not to be played with "on these premises."
She and her elder sister stepped, blinking, into the brightly lit, orange floored third section with cries of delight mingled with puzzlement.
"A card will come up every 14 minutes?" queried Philippa looking at the ballot-type box beside the model of the politician who blows up a red balloon, every 14 minutes, too.
Heath Robinson had nothing on this pointless contraception, although a 12-year-old seemed quite happy to wait and see what the card said. There wasn't enough instant fun about the politician to keep a small child amused so we never did discover what that elusive card had written on it but moved on instead to the most popular toy in the exhihition, There were neverless than six or seven children of all ages clambering and bouncing all over the Flastielimb which combines the virtues of the traditional climbing frame with the entertainment of the trampoline.
On a metal framework the horizontal bars are made of a thick rubber-like webbing which bounced the children about like demented yo•yos. No one could keep their kids off it for long and if some manufacturer doesn't take up the idea, if only for schools and playgrounds. he would he crazy for if ever there was a successful toy invented, this is itn Another toy which kept the kids fascinated was Simon Nicholson's Magic Blower consisting of a vertical transparent tube connected to a motor.
Place a ping gong halt or more into a tube and by fiddling with a control knob ail is forced tip the tulle and keeps the balls dancing in what could he called mid air.
Slightly less successful as a toy because its large size isn't necessary but equally diverting was the Giant Maec designed by students at the liornsey college of Art. A huge sphere of transparent plastic it has a maze of rods round which you have to guide a ball into a red circle.
Children love things to do, but also they cannot resist things to watch, a pastime that has become all too frequent in a telly-ridden age.
Probably the most enjoyable "game" for our two was the Punch and Judy Show included in the cost of the entrance ticket, 7s. 6d. for adults, 2s. 6d. for the 6 to 16s and nothing for the under 5s.
During mid-January and until the end of the month there are a variety of other shows going on ranging from a puppet theatre to a gameplay called King of Shouting House performed by students of the Manchester College of Art and Design. Closed on Mondays, the. exhibition is open from Tuesday to Sunday. II a.m. until 7 p.m.
Play Orbit is an exhibition which is doing more than merely amuse. It is showing that a permanent exhibition of ideas in toy design would be a welcome addition to the design world and might encourage more imaginative designers into the field of child's play which. as the artists themselves discovered. is one of the most challenging and least changed aspects of design.