Fun takes centre stage in museum's celebration of Blackpool culture

Blackpool has many claims to fame: two spectacular ballrooms, three raucous piers and a tower so beloved that people wept when it was wrongly reported to be on fire last year. But until this week, in more than 170 years as one of the UK's most popular seaside resorts, it has not had a proper museum.

- Helen Pidd

Showtown, Blackpool's museum of fun, will open its doors on Friday. Built for £13m on the site of the old Palace nightclub, it celebrates the outrageous past and present of the entertainment industry in the Lancashire riviera.

Visitors will be taken through the resort's rambunctious history, from the politically incorrect sideshow attraction of Jolly Alice, billed as the largest girl in the world ("She's a whopper!"), to Strictly Come Dancing's Blackpool specials, filmed at the Tower Ballroom each December.

The museum's highly interactive approach mixes historical artefacts with games to play. Visitors can design their own illuminations, judge a Britain's Got Talent-style show, or make a whoopee cushion expel increasingly loud trumps.

Exhibits include a Blackpool police cell Harry Houdini escaped from in 1905; an Orville the Duck puppet; and a sausage-firing gun and toilet seat harp made by Charlie Cairoli, a celebrated Blackpool-based clown.