Fire! Fire! opened in July 2016 and has been very popular with audiences of all ages, from near and far. One of the people behind the exhibition is curator Meriel Jeater. With the advent of Facebook Live, we wanted to give our international audience a chance to connect with Meriel and ask her their ‘burning’ questions about the Great Fire of 1666 whilst walking around the exhibition in real time.
Watch the film below to see Meriel, following the narrative of the exhibition, telling the history of the Great Fire from its beginnings in a bakery in Pudding Lane. She'll talk you through the various conspiracy theories about what happened and who was responsible for starting the fire. She discusses the extent of the damage to the city and what people saved. The first film ends at the point where we move from what happened during the fire to its aftermath.
In the second film, Meriel invites us to look at objects that were found during archaeological excavations of sites damaged by the fire. We learn about the impact the fire had on approaches to fires in the future, and the various visions Londoners had for the re-building of the city.
Fire! Fire! ran from July 2016 to April 2017.
