Dr Bunhead's Blast Off!

Doctor Bunhead has been making things go bang on stage at Edinburgh for a few years now, and his skill and popularity have burgeoned to the point that he’s now a real fixture of a lot of families’ Fringe schedules. Once again performing in the suitably academic setting of a massive university lecture theatre just off George Square, the star of TV’s Brainiac packs the place two thirds full of wide-eyed potential scientists and pyromaniacs.

This year, the show is ostensibly a lecture on the origins of the universe and humans’ developing relationship with fire since they came down from the trees. The educational element of the show is sincere and generally well delivered, but we’re never far away from an explosion or some other gasp-inducing spectacle.

The stage is like something from a keen physics teacher’s daydream: there are makeshift rockets, balloons full of various combinations of gases, a fire funnel, a makeshift vacuum, and seemingly endless quantities of explosives. A brief lecture, accompanied by some witty powerpoint slides, introduces each set-piece, before we get to the loud noises and things flying through the air.

Fest last saw the good doctor in 2010 and his confidence and stage presence have massively improved since then. He struts and gurns like a nerdy, slightly crazy favourite uncle, getting plenty of mileage out of fart jokes and playing on the apparent peril that he’s putting us in, whilst never letting us feel we really are in unsafe hands. There were plenty of squeals of terror and delight at this performance, and no small degree of wonder, too.