Carmen had originally intended to visit this exhibition with one of her friends, but with just over a month left before it’d come to an end, I offered to go with her instead. I did however find out later that I was wrong about this - they just don’t let you book more than thirteen weeks in advance. The exhibit was actually given a permanent home on the waterfront by the Excel in London to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the show. After a bag check you then show them your ticket, get a photo taken inside a photo frame, and then go into a room where an intro video is played - with a voiceover from Janice Hosenstein (actor Maggie Wheeler). The wall then slides back to reveal the sofa and fountain from the opening sequence of the show, as the opening music by The Rembrandts then plays on repeat.

“Oh, my, gawd”

You join a queue to have your photo taken on the sofa, but I don’t think the angle they do it from is great - I felt it should have been a little lower, but the door would have been in the way. From there, the actual tour starts with costumes from the series - one for each of the six main characters.

There are then some reproductions of production sketches such as a floor plan of the sets, and then some of the actual scripts from the show. The most notable one is “Six of One”, the script for the pilot episode with the show’s original title before it became FRIENDS.

Around the corner is a strange aircraft-like tunnel to a section that is then all about the episodes in London. Of course there’s a section on this, as we are in London after all. There is a replica of the souvenir stand that Joey buys from, Joey’s camera and map, his stag-do t-shirt, Rachel’s passport, and a fake telephone booth. There’s then a replica of the set from Ross’ wedding to Emily, so we re-enacted that scene as well. I couldn't quite remember Ross' look after he'd said Rachel's name instead, but I tried my best!

“I, Ross, take thee, Rachel”

The first of the permanent sets that you get to wander around is Joey’s apartment. There’s a queue to be able to have your photo taken on the famous LA-Z-Boy chairs in front of the extra large TV stand. There’s always a lot of people in this area and the ones that follow, so it’s really difficult to get any pictures at all without other people in them.

The kitchen area isn’t 100% accurate either, but it has the foosball table, and there’s the doodle board on the back of the door.

There are then some more information panels, and around the corner from that is the hallway. I’d joked previously that if Carmen wanted to replicate as many scenes as we could, we should take a fork with us just in case. Sure enough, there on the hallway floor is a piece of the cheesecake from the episode “The One With All The Cheesecakes” where Joey takes a fork from his pocket and crouches down to where Rachel and Chandler are eating off the floor.

“Alright, what are we having?”

Next door to this is Monica’s apartment, and that is even harder to get photos of. There’s the kitchen, complete with a beef trifle in the fridge, and the entire lounge area with a backdrop for the window seat as well.

There’s an extra pillar in the room (not where the one was that got removed after the early episodes), but I think that’s because it was actually structural for the building we were in and had just been decorated to look like part of the set.

There’s then the turkey from ‘The One With All The Thanksgivings,’ before you reach the set for Central Perk. I’d been in Central Perk perviously, when I want to Los Angeles in 2015 and did the Warner Brothers studio tour. I think this set replica was much better though as it also had the window area with Phoebe’s guitar, and the keyboard that Ross used. There’s even a very old Dell laptop on one of the tables.

Outside of Central Perk they then have Phoebes taxi cab, a cafe where you can buy a light snack and drinks, loads of signs with quotes hanging from the ceiling, and then a few more photo opportunities that they scan your barcode for. For each of these, we got them to take a photo with our phones as well, after having seen others ask them to do the same. There’s the staircase and sofa from “The One With The Cop” where Ross got them to help carry it.

“PIVOT!”

There’s also the dog statue from “The One With Joey’s New Apartment” which later sees Joey and Chandler riding on the back of it. To get that one right, I looked up a photo of it online as it's one of the iconic images from the show. Finally there’s the door set-up from “The One With The Late Thanksgiving” where they’re all late to Thanksgiving and Monica locks them out.

After that, before the gift shop, you can scan your barcode to see digital copies of the photos that have been taken at the various stops around the tour. You can’t choose to just get digital copies of the photos, you have to buy something physical before it offers them for £7.00. So I bought a print of one of the photos for £15.00 in order to get the copies.

The 'skip the queue' option wouldn't have been worthwhile today as the queue simply wasn't big enough to warrant it. So bearing in mind that 'The Ultimate Package' starts £65 per person, and the general admission is from £32, if we'd not had a drink before the tour, it could have been worthwhile as in addition to the print and digital downloads you also get a drink, a lanyard, a pin badge, and 10% off in the store.