Spoof film mocks BP sponsorship of British Museum Vikings Exhibition

Grassroots “actor-vist” group and Art Not Oil member the Reclaim Shakespeare Company have launched a spoof film challenging BP’s sponsorship of the British Museum’s popular Vikings exhibition. The film is modelled closely on the British Museum’s official Vikings trailer, and plays on the fact that a notorious oil company is sponsoring an exhibition about violent, ocean-traversing raiders and plunderers. The spoof film was launched together with a petition calling for an end to the British Museum’s BP sponsorship deal, which is up for renewal in 2017.

The launch of the film and petition on Thursday 24th April 2014 coincided with the British Museum’s Vikings Live event, a live broadcast of an exhibition walk-through and Viking battle re-enactments that was screened at hundreds of cinemas across the UK. Opponents of the exhibition’s fossil fuel sponsorship hijacked the Museum’s dedicated #VikingsLive hashtag to promote the spoof film, and handed out anti-BP flyers at a number of the screenings.

To view the spoof film and read more, click here.