((discussion as time draws to end).
BS: Do you use different formats or styles for your shows?
ER: Yes. Some shows - will be completely different to others in in the, in the science theatre. Planetarium tends to be the same format. But not always. Some of them - for example the Storytime ones which are aimed at younger children will will be different - than - the ones for the older children and adults. The one I'm thinking of particularly is "Meet the planets." For the summer, Mars will be running alongside "Meet the planets" so alternate shows will be for older children and adults and for younger children with the storytime. Mars, essentially, is one person, narrating the show. Meet the planets, has different characters coming in. So they'll be talking and one character will be asking questions to another character who is meant to be a planet or a personification of a planet. And then at the end - it's - this isn't making sense without context, the (mid planets) is a space probe, who's looking for a planet to live on. So as they come across the - solar system they look at each of the planets and they say "Oh I'm not sure. What's the best thing about your planet? Or is it too hot? Is it too wet? Is it too windy?" And then at the end the space probe has to decide which planet to live on. So you can actually pause, the show and then go round all the children asking them which planet do they think that the space probe should go and live on and hopefully they'll come up with the Earth. And then you can press play again and the show ends.
That's something that I haven't used in an adult or a, older children's show but it is something that is a change to the format. But not - it doesn't change as much as in the Science Theatre where you've got more scope to change. For example, the Slime Show, is, a very a great fun show - where it's basically a presenter talking about slime. So you've got a whole load of bowls with different slimes in them and you talk about the properties of the materials. So, is it a liquid? is it a solid? how does it change? can you cut it? can you stretch i? can you bounce it? can you break it? And that's that's the show. It's one man and a ball and a bowl of or two of slime. Now - I found when I'm presenting that show, we have had a power point in the past, which actually dis- detracts from it. And - I prefer, to just, keep it very low tech, couple of bowls and a presenter.
other shows work more with - with a power point presentation to go alongside it. So for example, TechnoTunes at the moment has a PowerPoint presentation and it goes through the show, the show goes through the PowerPoint and that kind of dictates what comes next in the show. Some, science theatre shows can be just a one person show. Others, you'll have 2 people. "What A Performance" over Christmas time which was the science of the pantomime, had kind of the straight man and the pantomime dame. So, the pantomime dame would, would change costume and act up, while the, the other presenter would be - acting it more straight. So that's a completely different format to something like TechnoTunes or to something like The Slime Show.
Some of them, like again TechnoTunes at the moment is very high tech. The amount of equipment in there - there's a great deal of equipment, where as the Slime Show was just a bowl and, you know, a couple of bowls of and some scissors and very low tech.
So some of them are game shows um "Gifts and Gadgets" which is a Christmas show works on family fortunes show. So you see - the we went we asked 100 people what gifts they would associate with Christmas and they come up with and then the audience have to guess. So the audience may say SWEETS. So then you say "sweets, yes" here we go, sweets and - you do a demonstration on sweets. Then it might say - computers so you do a demonstration on computers. So the order of the show is dictated by which quest- which answers the audience give you first. If they get the answer then you've got the ((sound effect)) and they're punished by you reading out a very bad Christmas cracker joke. So that is a completely different style again. ((pause)) One in which the, the order of the show is dependent upon the audience rather than dependent on a power point presentation. So they, they are completely different. Yes. And, that often depends on the subject that you're trying to get across. Some subjects work better as game shows, some subjects work better, I mean you couldn't do slime as a game show. However if you took talking doing a show all about risk, then that's a board game which is Snakes and Ladders which just works really well, because of the good - luck if you get onto a ladder and bad luck if you get onto a snake. So it helps illustrate, shows what you're doing.