People Show, People Show No. 98 - The Solo Experience

Review in Issue 8-3 | Autumn 1996

At the invitation of the Barclays New Stages Festival, the People Show presented a reworking of People Show No. 98 – The Solo Experience. This piece is Mark Long's idiosyncratic explanation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Over an an hour and ten minutes he told tales of smuggling, boxing and smut all interwoven with science and maths. Echoes of variety and the song and dance men of yore resonated throughout the tall tales, thus making the unfeasibly complicated comfortable and familiar. The cultural detritus which orbited the central narrative perhaps served to underline how much a part of the public consciousness the Theory of Relativity has become since its birth in 1905 – despite, as Mark Long points out, the fact that very few people actually understand it. Whatever the reason for the razzmatazz, it served to sustain a hectic pace and ensured that the audience was never bored on their journey through the four dimensions. If you remember ‘Think of a Number' with Johnny Ball fondly then you would find this show irresistible.

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This article in the magazine

Issue 8-3
p. 21