Novelty Automation

Want a divorce? Fancy a cheap holiday? Need to launder money or lose weight? All these things and many others can be achieved for the modest outlay of a pound (sometimes two) at the nutty slot machines of Novelty Automation in a small shabby space behind a Bloomsbury shopfront. Once displayed in the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre on the lower level of Covent Garden’s Apple Market, these lovingly crafted moving sculptures are almost all the work of cartoonist Tim Hunkin. Highlights include Test Your Nerve – a slot machine that invites you to place your hand beneath the jowls of a huge, red-eyed, growling dog; and Microbreak, which simulates ‘all the benefits of a holiday with none of the downsides’ – you even get a hot blast of sun, courtesy of the lamp on top of the telly in front of you. Great fun.