Secrets of the Museum S03E01 - Episode 1

Inside every museum is a hidden world, and now cameras are returning to the V&A, going behind the scenes to parts of the Victoria and Albert Museum never seen before.

Curator Annemarie prepares a major new exhibition on Beatrix Potter. The V&A holds the world's largest collection of the author's sketches, illustrations and writings, and now Annemarie is hoping the exhibition will highlight Potter's special relationship with the natural world.

Curator Simon has also been scouring the stores – looking for special props and costumes from stage and screen to loan out to a new museum of showbusiness history, called Showtown, due to open in Blackpool in 2023. He's found an original magic trick prop used many times by much-loved magician and comedian Tommy Cooper.

Meanwhile curator Catherine is taking delivery of one of the museum's newest acquisitions – an eight foot tall painting by African-American artist Kehinde Wiley. The painting is a portrait of a 35-year-old woman from Dalston in east London, Melissa Thompson. Wiley has painted sitters from Spike Lee to Barack Obama, but his new work sees ordinary people captured in poses of power and majesty. Catherine goes to meet Melissa at Ridley Road market in Dalston to learn what it was like to be painted by Wiley.