Science Museum Live On Tour! (Tour – Salford)

Venue: The Lowry
Where: Salford

The Science Museum from South Kensington, London out on tour? Sounds like a crazy idea; however this show, aimed at 7 upwards, proves that it is quite the reverse. Using Key Stage 2 and 3 physics, the show takes the audience through the basics of gravity, force, mass, energy, electricity, and friction.

The guides for the evening are young, bubbly scientists Mark McKinley and Amanda Marr. Using wacky costumes, factual science and a great deal of humour we are propelled through the subjects at a fair rate: never slow enough to get boring, but not so fast as to lose the information.

The experiments done on stage range from the stylish – liquid nitrogen and hot water mixed; the loud – liquid nitrogen heated under pressure; to the downright amazing – creating a passenger carrying hovercraft out of plywood, plastic sheeting, a chair and a leaf blower. All the experiments are used to make the science easy to understand whilst being entertaining. There are short video clips interspersed between topic changes, and scenes of the most hammed up acting I have ever seen to illustrate characters and information. Every scrap of information is absorbed by the audience, even if some of them can’t recall it in the quiz at the end.

The strongest thing in the show is the audience interaction. The show only starts when a member of the audience presses a button; volunteers are involved with several of the experiments, and there is a constant encouragement from the stage for answers and reaction from the auditorium.

Science Museum: Live on Tour! is a show that lights up the world. Don’t drag your feet, go and see it!

– Helen Jones