Curtain Up! The World of Toy Theatre

Curtain Up! The World of Toy Theatre opens at The Brighton Toy and Model Museum on 6 November 2026 and runs through to 9 January 2027. It's a visiting exhibition that takes the history of the toy stage from the Georgian period right up to the present day, so it covers more than two centuries of the thing in one go.

What you'll see are the bits that made toy theatre what it was: miniature performers, intricate scenery and colourful designs. Those three things together walk you through the whole timeline, from the early days when these little stages were a popular home pastime through to how they've evolved over the years. It's as much about the craftsmanship as the theatre itself — the way the sets were built and the figures painted to create a whole world in miniature.

The museum hosting it is The Brighton Toy and Model Museum, which opened back in 1991. It's a good fit for this sort of thing, as the whole place is dedicated to the small-scale and the meticulously made, so a toy theatre exhibition sits right in its wheelhouse.

Practical details: the museum is at 52-55 Trafalgar Street, Brighton, BN1 4EB. A standard ticket is £6.00, and the exhibition is included in that museum admission, so you get the rest of the collection as well. It runs from 6 November 2026 to 9 January 2027, which gives you plenty of time to fit it in over the winter.