Theatre
You Are Here!
Glasgow Science Museum
Mary Brennan, two stars
ON paper, this collaboration between Winchester Science Centre and Glasgow-based theatre company The Occasion, appeared promising. Located in the Planetarium at Glasgow’s Science Museum, with a script by Andy Cannon – who is steeped in all things cosmological – it looked like a useful interaction between the arts and science, and maybe an introduction to both for younger children.
Unfortunately the little ones at the showing I went to were too young to do more than join in the action mimes initiated by our guides, Michelle and Ann, blue-blazered representatives of WOW! tours.
The tinies were certainly too young to take in the heavy-duty details that the pair rattled through – at high-pitched, break-neck speed – while the overhead imagery of star-scapes and planets also zoomed by. Older children might fare better.
Even so, with a goofy pre-amble from our ‘happy camper’ guides eating into an already short performance time, the feel of the piece was more comedy caper than a genuine, eye-opening journey into space
When we did ‘take-off’ and the overhead dome filled with the Solar System, the imagery and the information were disappointingly hurried. Whoosh! that was Jupiter, whoosh! we were powering through one of Saturn’s rings, whoosh! – the (AWOL) Professor was suddenly on-screen telling us that the Most Amazing Planet was... Earth, where we were from. End of show. Goodbye, folks.
The message that we should love and appreciate and look after our own planet is a worthy one. Our Solar System is full of wonders that new technologies are opening up to us – a passing glimpse of the Mars rover in situ doesn’t do any of that justice.
Saddest of all is the ditsy framework of Michelle and Ann – a garrulous bossy-boots mother and an over-excitable daughter – that suggests young children can’t be expected to engage with serious facts, or concentrate for any length of time.
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