The exhibition “It Was Another Time” at the STORM museum fails to offer fresh insights into the evolution of humor and its reflection of gender roles in Danish performing arts. The reviewer found the selected revue clips unfunny and the presentation uninspired, akin to “day-old toast.”

The exhibition, which runs until August 30, 2026, at STORM in Frederiksberg, presents audio clips, costumes, posters, and clippings from various revues, aiming to illustrate how humor has shaped women’s roles and power structures over 125 years. However, the reviewer argues that the power structures shaped the humor, not the other way around. The exhibition includes material from Dagmar Hansen, Liva Weel, the Lommer girls, Svikmøllen, Hudibras, and others, culminating in Søs and Kirsten, Anne Marie Helger, and Emma Sehested Høeg.

The exhibition begins with Sofie Linde’s monologue from the 2020 Zulu Comedy Galla. The reviewer questions whether the humor presented in the exhibition was ever genuinely funny to anyone.

The reviewer expresses curiosity about the perspectives of female cartoonists like Maggi Baaring and Anni Lippert, who contributed misogynistic and sexualized drawings, but the museum does not delve into their experiences. The reviewer criticizes the exhibition for judging the past by today’s standards. The reviewer suggests the museum missed an opportunity to explore the underlying anxieties in the male-dominated world that fueled such primitive humor.

Ultimately, the reviewer struggles to recommend the exhibition, finding the selected texts poor, the topic overdone, and the angles predictable. The reviewer believes the STORM museum failed to capitalize on a promising premise.