Brainiacs Live! Theatre Royal, Brighton
Saturday 4 July 2026
As we filed into the cool interior of Brighton’s oldest theatre, leaving the warm July afternoon behind, I did wonder whether this 25-year-old format would have it in it to keep a pair of tweenie-cool 10-year-olds occupied for an hour.
After all, these kids have grown up watching grown men belly-flop into pools of jelly and robots setting up 100,000 dominoes in 24 hours, all in the name of science.
Can three exuberant entertainers and some rather “homemade”-looking props really compete with ex-NASA scientists and their million-dollar budgets?
Thankfully, I need not have wondered. The Brainiacs’ charming brand of laughs and bangs – and more bangs – was the perfect Saturday lunchtime diversion for these worldly youngsters and their optimistic grown-ups.
From the off, it’s clear this is going to be a fun ride. The stage is filled with various shaped detonators and fuses, but that’s all props, surely?
When the screen at the back of the stage flashes a skull and crossbones warning of loud bangs, take notice: these are real explosions. Really loud explosions.
It was quite the revelation, it turns out that these tech-savvy kids, and their grown-ups, love jumping out of their seats when a nitrogen-filled balloon goes pop.
And they find nothing more thrilling than watching an empty hot-water bottle, with a smiley face drawn on it in marker pen, be pumped full of air until it explodes. We watched, we cowered, we plugged our ears and we jumped out of our seats when that bad boy finally blew. The anticipation for that sinister rubber sack to explode was like waiting in the queue for the Turbo – full of tummy jitters and sudden reconsiderations of life choices.
Throughout the show, the audience is part of the fun – none of this “kids from the front row being called up on stage” routine, to the frustration of every other parent and child in the crowd. Everyone is brought along: we might be counting toroidal vortices (smoke rings) one moment and the next experiencing an explosive experiment where I discover I have the hearing of a very old person.
We are led through this battery of experiments by our three Brainiacs, who risk life and limb – and the contents of their lunch – to share their love of science.
Explanations are kept age-appropriate and brief because, let’s face it, we’re there for the sparks, pops and dirty socks being propelled into the crowd by homemade, carbon-dioxide-fuelled bazookas.
So yes, there may have been some educating going on in there somewhere. I’m not sure our young companions had any idea they were witnessing exothermic reactions or Newton’s third law of motion but, when you’re having such a good time, does it really matter anyway?
Our tech-savvy kids, courtesy of YouTube content creators, have seen bigger explosions and crazier stunts with higher production values. These are not without value and play an important role in piquing children’s interest in STEM.
But Brainiacs Live gives these youngsters, and their parents, a real-life experience: a chance to see, hear and smell science – science that gets their bones rattling and vagus nerves trembling.
It pongs, it’s deafening and it all happens several metres in front of us in a theatre packed with hundreds of other children. That’s something all the YouTubers in the world can’t recreate.
