The stage looks like a science teachers nightmare: covered in tangles of wire, buckets and bins, the tables overflowing with mysterious bottles, flasks, gas-torches, tubes and an occasional jelly baby. Amid this mayhem presides Dr Bunhead (aka Tom Pringle) whom kids may recognise from Blue Peter or Brainiac. Manic, excitable but always in control (you hope) Pringle is a force in himself. After warming the audience up by teaching some observational techniques, Pringle leads into his first experiment, which involves a bang. A very big bang. In fact, much of the show involves bangs of some kind, and the kids love them, the bigger the better, whooping and shrieking. Without getting bogged down in scientific jargon, Pringle goes through the different elements that make up a volcanic explosion, starting with pressure. First he explodes a latex glove off his head, next a hot water bottle using liquid nitrogen. Bang, BANG! The experiments are just dangerous enough to have everybody on the edges of their seats, without ever being really worried for their safety. Throughout all the experiments, Pringle keeps up a relentless patter, talking us through what hes doing, making jokes and sometimes talking to himself. When a glow in the dark liquid is compared to alien pee, or a frothing flask (demonstrating the pyroclastic flow from a volcano) to volcano diarrhoea, Pringle gets an uproarious reaction from the audience. Sometimes Pringles manic side crosses from funny to worrying and he cant quite hide his exasperation at the techies back stage or the sound and lighting guys. This was the first show, so things were bound to be a little off-kilter, but instead of moving on, Pringle had a little jokey rant at the sound guys and by the end the laughter of the audience had worn a little thin. Most of the time though, he keeps us on his side. This is obviously a very demanding show and Pringle is a whirlwind keeping it all together. We are shown a tornado flame on stage and such incredible effects are my favourite points of the show, unlike the children sat in my row: I liked the bit at the end best says Lawrence, 7, and his little sister agrees. Theyre talking about what is possibly the biggest bang of the show: a coke bottle full of liquid nitrogen exploding inside a bin. BOOM!Im starting school tomorrow says Madeleine, 5. Hopefully her teachers will have learnt some lessons from Dr Bunhead, because his show is a fantastic mix of the funny and the incredible, igniting an interest in the explosive side of science for all ages, even the old codgers at the back.
