BS: I was quite surprised when you described the science theatre as a space in which the information is sort of given, but I've noticed that there is quite a lot of techniques that you use to get the audience to interact. Could you talk a little bit about that.
DB: Yeah, I think - the whole point about it is, if you can actually get the young people to actually be involved in the thing, because all this sort of thing, you know, if somebody just tells you something you - tend to ignore it but if they actually do it themselves they tend to remember it. And I think what we do with all our shows in the Science Theatre is you try to get the young people involved in it. Because for one thing if they're involved in it personally it'll have a bigger effect on them, and also if you, see, if they actually see their friends or their teacher doing something they'll tend to remember those sorts of things as well.
Also you're covering - you're trying to cover things that they can't do in school. There's a (link) to the school that they can't always do in the schools. So I think you've got to get the young people actually involved in the actual talks, in someway, otherwise they're just going to sit there and go to sleep. I'm not saying it's like a lecture, but I think you're trying, out of all areas that's the area where you're trying to impart the information because you've got a set script that's trying to impart the information. And I think you're trying to impart it in in - in different ways, by actually giving them some information, trying to find out what they learn and get them to come up with some of the answers. So, you know, there's lots of different techniques, like that you use in there.
The older they get the harder it is to get them to, when they get to a certain age it's much harder to get them to come down. When they get up to about - usually alright up to about - 13, between 13 and 16 sometimes you have problems getting people down to take part. When you get to students you usually don't have much problem getting them to come down and take part so - it's quite interesting in the - 11 and 12 year olds virtually are still almost - they're almost although they've gone up to the secondary they've still got lots of similar things to the primary and they all want to volunteer and come down you know. So - from that point of view I'm not saying it's actually like a lecture. What I'm saying I think is a certain amount of information trying to impart and the person at the front is actually ( ) to impart that, more than you would in some of the other - in some of the other - actual - in some of the other areas, you know.