The closing few minutes of this show proclaim that “Science Isn’t Fun,” but I beg to differ. 4 performers (or are they lecturers? Or stand-up artists? Possibly failed rock musicians?) take the dry topic of the discoveries of Albert Einstein, and weave them into a highly enjoyable hour of what could be described as a ‘typically British’ show.

Taking five of the greatest discoveries (Brownian Motion, the Photo Electric Effect, General Relativity, Special Relativity and the Unified Field Theory), they use the mind-bending physics behind it all as the basis of the show, descibing them in practical experiments using cricket bats, footballs, massive trampoline like sheets of rubber, a really bad fake hand, and a huge amount of humour. There’s no real belly laughs, but then the science is wacky enough without having to cope with an accordian travelling at close to the speed of light (which is just the icing on the cake) . The team from the British Science Museum just need to push the concepts presented here very slightly to take us into the wonderful world of Physics with no formulas.

On stage they’re all confident, at ease with each other, and play off the audience in a gentle self-depreciating fashion that only mad scientists can master. Punk Science is probably a great way to start of a night of Fringe fun. Funny enough to be enjoyable, but light enough to act as a great first course.

Show: Punk Science: The Albert Einstein Experience.
Where: Gilded Balloon.
When: 1615-1715, 5th to 28th August.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 5th, 2005 at 12:18 am and is filed under Theatre Reviews 2005. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.