Putting the "L" back into play

The irony of the faded "L" in this artwork - Play by Ulrik Weck - was not lost on some of us who attended a charity night at Play, a fringe off-shoot exhibition from last month's Frieze art fair. Especially given the glut of gallery owners and dealers showing round potential buyers. The buyers seemed to avert their eyes from this piece near the entrance. Someone pop out for neon bulbs pronto!

Curated by East London gallery Paradise Row and Prakke Contemporary, Play features 50 works and performances scattered over four storeys in a disused Georgian mansion in Mayfair. And I must say I had the most fun I've had at an exhibition in ages which may explain why its run has been extended.

Billed as "a festival of fun", the exhibition is liberal in its approach to its theme. Rooms of random curiosities included Jake and Dinos Chapman's Fucking With Nature. Stuffed animals hump on either side of a mechanized see-saw as a wee mouse runs between the two. It's overlooked by another Chapman piece:

featuring Ronald McDonald of whom they are so fond and who has subversively featured in previous work. Then there is Conrad Shawcross' Axiom reminiscent of a child's playground:

I enjoyed the frivolous lamps with feet:

 and I reckon my driving instructor would love this one:

Douglas White's Moon Cabinet (using wax and pigment to create a luminous orb) would look amazing in my bedroom:

But it was the fun performances which make this exhibition so inventive. From the Fucked Off Frog standing by a paddling pool giving passers-by the Vs to the Word Orchestra on the stairs, conducted by artist Ian Giles, creating unexpected and sometimes profound sentences.

You'll see different performances, depending on when you go. I ended up playing in a tiny room filled with polystyrene balls (entered through a trap door in what was made to look like a bunk bed in an eerie children's bedroom).

Immersing yourself in tiny balls is a pleasant but odd sensation especially when the trap door shuts out the light. It was the float experience all over again (see earlier post about darkness).

When we came across a room full of feathers - part of a performance piece called Kinder Heaven - there was nothing for it but to dive in. Much fun was had until we could no longer breathe. We also paid for it later (my most expensive coat still looks like a half plucked chicken and my favourite black jeans could be ruined).

That might explain the shocked gaze of Trudie Styler on the arm of Guy Ritchie (random I know) as they caught sight of our haute couture be-feathered look when they swept past us into Ritchie's pub Punchbowl a few streets away. We were attempting to have a one-for-the-road Amaretto but it seemed there was no room at the celebrity inn. Styler looked extremely startled, her eyes as wide as a raver's and her mouth formed into a pouty "o" shape that for some reason made me want to pop in a golf ball sized polystyrene ball (can she blink I wonder?). But I digress. Back to the feather plucking....

Play runs until Friday 13th November.Contact the gallery for a viewing appointment.