Why are we so fascinated with the idea of being locked in a museum after hours, roaming the galleries overnight and meeting the ghosts that emanate from dusty artefacts? The premise of the new Ben Stiller film touches on a common fantasy that surely has to do with the sense that a museum is not an entirely matter-of-fact place, that it is freighted with the dreams of lost civilisations, troubled by prehistoric memories, in short, haunted. And so, if you ask me what museum I'd most like to be locked in overnight, there can only be one answer.
Most museums fail the spookiness test. It would be fascinating to wander New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art overnight, looking out on nocturnal central park from its glassed-in Egyptian temple, but somehow it fails to be frightening. The Uffizi in Florence is, I'm sure, haunted, but the Renaissance masters would make wise ghosts, fascinating to meet, not scary. As for Tate Modern, you'd probably find there was an all-night music gig on.
No, the museum of choice to be shut away from dusk to dawn - if you dare - has to be the British Museum. The sprawling and, in places, faded recesses of this stupendous collection of world cultures offer a tremendous overnight history lesson, if you get time between Scooby-Doo style chases.
And chases there will surely be, for the British Museum really does have ghosts. A mummy case in the Egyptian galleries is even said to have sunk the Titanic. Anyone contemplating the museum's colossal Egyptian statuary feels the power of the mummy's spell, even by daylight. In the dark anything might happen.
If the mummy gives you a break, do go to the Parthenon sculpture gallery, which looks far better by night than in the day. If mouldy Egyptians don't scare you go to the ghostly Clocks gallery, where you can expect some eerie chimes. The bog man, the Samurai warrior, and the Lewis chessmen will all be after you by this time. Have fun.
If this isn't your perfect museum in which to spend an uncomfortable night - what is?
