Post written by Explainer Amanda
A spotlight follows a child as he or she makes their way to the stage. The audience chants “Push the button! Push the button!” A giant red button is pushed, thus beginning not only a chain reaction machine, but also Science Museum Live on Tour.
Science Museum Live, the Science Museum’s first ever live theatrical tour, toured theatres throughout England and Wales from January to May 2011. Mark McKinley and I (Amanda Mahr) performed almost 100 shows in just under 50 venues.
Incorporating Key Stage 2 (7-11) and Key Stage 3 (11-14) science, Science Museum Live was aimed mainly at families on a night out to the theatre with school groups largely attending during matinees.
The show flip-flopped between silly scenarios and serious science with fun as the underlying element to both. For one scene, Mark and I dressed up in sumo costumes as Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton in order to wrestle over who truly discovered gravity. In another, I played a magician while Mark played my glamorous assistant (complete with feather boa and heels of course) as we demonstrated the “magic of science” through a series of experiments.
More serious scenes included using liquid nitrogen to create a banana hammer (proved by its competency at hammering a nail into a block of wood) and by building a hovercraft onstage using a slab of wood we “just had lying around” and a leaf blower in order to help an innocent volunteer re-enact Christopher Cockerell’s (hovercraft inventor) maiden hovercraft voyage from Dover to Calais!
Science Museum Live was extremely fast-paced and fun. It was enjoyed by both young and older audience members throughout the UK, as well as the crew members from each new theatre! We managed to reach out to many families who would be unable to visit the Museum. Through Science Museum Live, the Science Museum was able to branch out from schools and the Museum itself into a whole new means of entertainment: live theatre.
Explainer Fact: The second season of Science Museum Live (complete with new demonstrations) will be touring again beginning in January 2012 (tour dates).