If you’ve travelled anywhere in or around London in the last few months, you’ll likely have seen at least one advert for Cute, which has been open at Somerset House since the end of January. The AI-generated rainbow kitticorns have, honestly, been everywhere. 

If you somehow managed to miss them, let me catch you up. Billed as a “…major new exhibition exploring the irresistible force of cuteness in contemporary culture”, Cute promises to unpick exactly what it is that makes us so drawn to, well, cute stuff. 

There’s also a pop-up café, the Cute Coffee Shop which runs in conjunction with the exhibition, but doesn’t require a ticket to enter. 

Ubiquitous rainbow kitticorns aside, as soon as I heard about it I really wanted to pay a visit. Growing up in the 90s and 00s, an age when (for perhaps the first time) it was cool to be into cute stuff even into your teens, I was interested to take a closer look at some of the nostalgia through the eyes of an adult. It’s only on for a couple more weeks, and so I jumped on my one last opportunity to catch it before the Easter holidays made it impossibly busy. 

So…was it worth it?

The basics: 

Cute is open Tuesdays-Sundays at Somerset House (Strand, TfL zone 1). Adult tickets are £18.50, and the exhibition runs until 14 April. The Cute Coffee Shop is also open Tuesdays-Sundays until 14 April.

The good…

There was a lot to see in a relatively small space and, thankfully, it was quiet when I visited so I was able to take my time on each exhibit. We start with a look at the origins of cuteness as we know it, first looking at Harry Pointer’s cartes-de-visite, and the delight of being introduced to the work of Louis Wain and his utterly charming cat cartoons. 

As you’d expect from an exhibition sponsored by Sanrio, it’s heavy on the Hello Kitty. There’s the Hello Kitty Disco which as the name suggests, is a mirrorball-adorned room where you can have a shimmy alongside some Hello Kitty neon lights, if you so wish. The exterior walls of the disco room are adorned with a disconcerting number of Hello Kitty plushies, which I couldn’t help but think reminded me a bit of putting executed prisoners’ heads on spikes as a warning to others. What did you do, Kitty, what did you do? 

There’s also a wide selection of Hello Kitty memorabilia on display; everything from the themed tins of spaghetti I remember from my childhood to spam kits, karaoke machines and a replica of the original coin purse that made the little girl (for that is what she is) famous. 

Heading upstairs to continue the journey, the first thing that struck me was how carefully structured it all was for maximum Instagram-value. With sections framed by brightly-coloured archways (my favourite was, of course, the fuzzy purple monster) providing multiple photo opportunities, it’s clear that was always meant to be a big part of the appeal. 

The central display was given over to various more modern examples of cuteness – well, I say more modern, but they’re mostly things I remember from my childhood, so I imagine they’d now be called “vintage”. There was everything from tamagotchi and Sylvanian Families to Animal Crossing, an IKEA Djungelskog bear and a Duolingo plushie, complete with examples of some of their more…unhinged social media content. In one of the alcoves opposite was a sculpture of a Techo, a delightful if unexpected throwback to the days when I’d book an hour in the library after school, to spend the entire time on Neopets. 

Once those initial pangs of nostalgia had worn off, I was left with a distinctly uneasy feeling as I explored the rest of the exhibits. Partly it’s because the works themselves took a darker turn in the latter half of the exhibition, exploring the “monstrous other” and the way cuteness is used not just to camouflage unpleasantness, but also as a manipulation tool (it also looks at how it can be used as a tool of resistance in its own right) and partly because I’d simply…had enough cute for one day? 

I found it really fascinating how rapidly I could go from “charmed, delighted and nostalgic” to “grumpy and horrified” – I barely managed to step into the Hannah Diamond exhibition before recoiling in dismay at the assault of twee-ness on all of my senses, and I’d barely been there half an hour by that stage. 

Finally on the positives, the games arcade was a great addition; I could have spent a lot longer in there than I did, but I was keen to make sure I’d covered everything. It was lovely to see Calico included as one of the games on offer, and I was rather taken by Froggy Pot, a “…short cosy game with a small side of existential crisis” (honestly, same, Froggy Pot, same) which I will be downloading to play properly at home. I didn’t get to try out any of the other games, but there were plenty to choose from. 

The bad…

This was such a complex exhibition, not just in terms of the subject matter but also the responses it elicited in me, that it’s really difficult to split things into simply “good” or “bad”. But this is the format I’ve chosen, so I’m going to stick with it. 

Some of the labels made assertions that made me raise an eyebrow – I might be missing something (and please tell me if I am!) but I don’t know if I’d make the claim that the creation of Gorillaz was somehow “…anticipating today’s cutification of the self on the internet”. 

I can’t think of a delicate way to phrase what I’m trying to say, so I’ll just come out with it: a lot of it felt a bit pretentious, and bordering on “trying too hard to sound clever and edgy” in a way that, frankly, really annoyed me. 

There’s quite a distinct mismatch, too, between the tone of the advertising and the tone of the display itself; while we do get to look at a lot of cute things – especially at the beginning – the majority is given over to exploring the darker, more sinister and even macabre side of cuteness. I’ve mentioned already that it was really interesting to explore where cute spills over into something more malevolent (and my own reactions to it), and the more I reflect the more sure I am that this was part of the overall intention. 

As the owner of what has been described as a “very expressive face”, I imagine that anyone who happened to spot me walking round the exhibits would think I was having a terrible time. I could feel my face scrunch up as I walked around some of the areas. Partly in bafflement, partly in distaste, partly just trying to make sense of what I was looking at.

The final work in the exhibition is DAZZLEDDARK, a five-minute “visual poem” of a film. It’s trippy, bizarre, kind of charming in an uneasy way and, ultimately, sums up the tone of the entire spectacle pretty well. 

Once out of the exhibition – and via a quick browse of the gift shop – I made my way around to the coffee shop. 

It turns out 11.30 on a Tuesday morning isn’t everyone’s favourite time for overpriced cartoon confections – despite having heard horror stories about the queues, when I popped round on the offchance it was fairly quiet, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to go straight in. 

Wanting to get the full experience, I opted for the strawberries & cream Hello Kitty hot chocolate, at an eye-watering £5.95 (Yes, that’s five pounds and ninety-five pence for a cup of hot chocolate), which came with a long, long list of toppings and decoration. I wish I’d just ordered a cappuccino. 

The “whipped cream” looked, felt and tasted more like shaving foam, and I’m not convinced it had ever been anywhere near a cow. Add marshmallows, sugar sprinkles, a rice-paper Hello Kitty disc and a truly repulsive “edible” bow made of something that vaguely had the texture of those fake white chocolate mice from bad pick n mix, and you’ve got the instagrammable-but-bordering-on-undrinkable cup of nightmare fuel I was presented with. 

Once I’d got all the detritus out of the way, the strawberry-flavoured hot chocolate was quite tasty, but definitely not worth the price tag, even if I did get to keep the coaster (a cardboard, Hello Kitty equivalent of a beer mat). It was so sickly-sweet I felt queasy for a good few hours afterwards. 

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere…

I didn’t order any food (I couldn’t justify spending any more money), and I’m not sad about it. The cakes on display looked very pretty, but if the drinks were anything to go by, I don’t know if they’d have lived up to the visual hype. It’s definitely the kind of place you’d visit for the vibes and the aesthetic, rather than the quality of the produce on offer. 

Things I didn’t get to see…

Other than the fluffy lift (which I forgot about entirely until just now) I managed to get to see everything in just over an hour, as well as sampling the coffee shop. The only thing I didn’t do was anything more than stick my head into the Hello Kitty Disco – there was nobody else in there, and I wasn’t quite in the mood for a solo boogie at 11am. It was delightfully sparkly, though.

So…is it worth the trip? 

I’ve gone back and forth on this a lot, because honestly, I’m…still not sure? It was interesting, it was thought-provoking, it was offputting, it was possibly overhyped. I felt profoundly uncomfortable at stages, and at others it was just the silly, cutesy fun I’d been primed to expect. And I think a lot of its brilliance is in that bait-and-switch, luring you in for one thing and delivering something else. I get the feeling that they put a lot of emphasis on making it instagram-worthy, and sadly that came at the expense of making it accessible to people who don’t already have a pretty deep knowledge of this kind of art and culture. 

Having said that, it was a really interesting exploration for me personally, especially looking back at my reactions and how quickly I moved from being charmed to appalled. 

As with the exhibition itself, my verdict is far more nuanced than a simple “yes” or “no”. On balance, though, I’d say it is worth the trip, if not all the hype that’s come with it. I’m glad I went, but I have no desire to see it again. 

The café is a no from me, for sure – if you do still want to give it a try for the experience, or for the ‘gram, please do yourself a favour and don’t waste any time queuing for it. It really isn’t worth it. 

The small(ish) print: This is one in an occasional series of reviews of places I’ve visited under my own steam, with my own money. Everything’s accurate at the time of writing, and all the opinions are mine.