Coming alive, it’s coming alive… Horrible Science is coming alive…
Those clever clogs from the Birmingham Stage Company have done it again! The latest in the Horrible series stage shows has given me those exact words (“it’s coming alive, it’s coming alive…” to a maddening tune going round and round in my head, and just when I think I have shaken it off one of my lovely children pipes up and actually sings it and away we go again!
Horrible Science, the follow up to Horrible Histories, a live and 3D interactive stage show with just four actors playing all the parts? Fabulous.
The other night we excitedly made our way down to Poole Lighthouse theatre to see this latest show, having already seen Horrible Histories and laughed our socks off (oh, and learnt a lot on the way of course) we were sure we were to be in for another treat.
Giant Bacteria. Ick.
A little bit of a slow start perhaps in the first half, and just maybe targeted at a slightly younger audience; it’s very difficult with science to get the balance right. Still, it was good and we watched as the cleverly woven story around Horrible Science World, where the terrifying science subjects such as horrible bacteria, body parts, electricity, and forces gradually took shape. We battled the computer T.I.M. (The Intelligent Machine) as he threatened to shut down the Horrible Science World and unleash its ghastliness in full size on the world in which we live. Unless, that is, we (with the help of Billy Miller the stooge student…of course) could solve the problems and answer the tricky science questions in each zone, and then ultimately turn off the master computer brain T.I.M. with four last tricky science questions to defeat his wicked plan of world destruction…phew!
Urghhhhh. Probably my favourite part of the show, and the character on the left stole the scene.
We battled large bacteria and stopped them multiplying from just one to 16 million in just a mere 8 hours!! We managed to escape the locked vaults once the mains electricity had been turned off by T.I.M. by building a circuit and using a rather large battery! We stopped Dr Frankenstein from chopping up poor old Billy Miller by using modern technology (Boggle Goggles) to see inside the human body and understand more about our various parts therein. And lastly we battled T.I.M. and gravity itself by understanding the forces that control push and pull…T.I.M. was defeated and we were all safe again for another day.
The second half of the performance I have to say really ramped up the anti and had everyone gripped from fabulous 3D objects flying into the audience (using the essential Boggle Goggles, of course) to the climax of saving horrible science world from being unleashed upon the world at large. It made us laugh, lots, it made us scream a little, it made us go Eeeuugh at the gory bits and of course ultimately we all went away not only having had a great time but even the oldest of us having learned a bit more about science and the world around us. Those clever old Horrible chaps… coming alive, it’s coming alive…Horrible Science is coming alive…
If you haven’t seen it yet…get your tickets today, its fab. There’s still a few remaining dates in the tour:
12 – 16 Nov Lighthouse Poole box office 0844 406 8666
19 – 23 Nov New Theatre Cardiff box office 029 208 78889
26 – 30 Nov Wyvern Theatre Swindon box office 01793 524481
3 – 7 Dec Birmingham Town Hall box office 0121 345 0603
“The show is based on the hugely popular Horrible Science books by Nick Arnold, illustrated by Tony de Saulles, which have sold over 15 million copies in 27 different languages world-wide and won such important scientific awards as the Rhone-Poulenc Prize in 1997, the Aventis Prize in 2004, ZSL Thomson Reuters Record Award for Communicating Science in 2010 and this year the Blue Peter Best Book with Facts Award voted for by children themselves.”
