Playmobil exhibition through the ages: Even the Moors and Christians fiesta

NOT JUST every child's dream, but every adult's, too, especially Millennials and late Generation-Xers: An Alicante-province town has unveiled a giant Playmobil exhibition showing its local history through the ages. 

For anyone who was a child in the 1980s, during the heyday of this fun German invention, birthday and Christmas present shopping couldn't have been easier – as long as they had Playmobil sets and figurines in their stocking and 'Santa sack', they were thrilled and would stay entertained all day and every day, even on their own and without friends, cousins or siblings to play with.

The park – with an ice-cream kiosk – the playroom, complete with train set, male and female figures in different coloured outfits and hair, meant there was never a shortage of pester-power fodder for kids, and pictures on boxes and in catalogues gave them plenty of ideas for how to set them up.

For example, a scrunched-up piece of transparent plastic represented river or swimming-pool water if you needed it.

Nowadays, and in the last three or four decades, new and exciting inventions of scenes, figures and features make the originals look dated: They've become rapidly more sophisticated and multiplied in number and frequency, and are now onto their second or even third generation of little fans.

Anyone mentally strolling down Memory Lane on reading this – and wishing SmartPhones with cameras had been invented 30 or 40 years ago – will be highly jealous of the team taken on by the local council in San Vicente del Raspeig, just to the north of Alicante city.

They were not paid for their 'troubles' – indeed, they would probably have paid to take them – but the informal Playmobil fan club, a group of friends who are all healthily obsessed with the miniature plastic people known in Spain as 'clicks' got the job of inventing the scenes for the exhibition and adding on extra bits to flesh them out.

The result is as real-looking as a diminutive set of stiff-jointed toys allow, and oozing with colour, too.

Four separate 'sets' are on display: The first being Ancient Rome, the second being Eastern culture reflecting something out of A Thousand And One Nights, the third shows a timeless scene of rural life, farming and working the fields, and the fourth, shown above, is a complete snapshot of San Vicente del Raspeig's Moors and Christians fiesta parade.

Christian soldiers in Mediaeval military helmets, Moors in turbans and flowing skirts, a white-and-black-clad marching band with trumpets and saxophones, and flag-bearers in miniature with the logos of each of the filaes, or 'troop groups', at the front make up the main parade, whilst the pavements are lined with clapping crowds and seated spectators.

Detail such as a gas-lamp street light, a red post box, and pink houses with clicks on balconies waving a Spanish flag, as well as at least three different varieties of trees show how far Playmobil has come since today's 40-somethings were still in early primary school.

But the pieces used for the exhibition scenes are not all modern inventions: The local fan group has been collecting the ones on show for over 30 years, so it's also a display of Playmobil through the ages as well as Mediterranean cultural history.

In keeping with the season that will be upon us by the time the exhibition opens to the public, an 'extra' figure who would otherwise appear out of place in any of the four displays is partially hidden: Santa Claus is hanging out somewhere in the crowd, and it's viewers' job to try to spot him.

We can't confirm whether he's in the above photograph, because we haven't been able to find him, but one of the three types of trees shown in a Christmas fir, albeit without the tinsel – which certainly would stand out as part of the backdrop for the summer Moors and Christians festival.

Members of the public can go along and see it from Monday, December 7 until Sunday, January 31, 2021 inclusive.

They'll find it in the lower ground floor of San Vicente del Raspeig town hall – entrance is free, but as pandemic safety measures apply (hand-sanitiser at the door, compulsory masks and social distancing), numbers are limited at any one time.

For this reason, anyone who wants to go along should call the town hall's tourism department on (0034) 965 66 01 04 to arrange a convenient time slot.