Lancashire and Cumbria

The Galactic Gig Tour

The Lancashire and Cumbria branch originally started planning an Einstein Year event, later to become the Galactic Gig Schools Roadshow, back in June 2004.

Anne Small, Then one of our committee members, approached an organization called Lancaster Concerts that was keen to write and perform a musical concert that would tour schools in the region, with the branch providing some physics experiments/demos to go with it.

Funding of £2000 was requested to pay for the event, which was dubbed “Physics and Music”. Shortly after hearing that our bid had been successful, Lancaster Concerts decided to pull out of the venture. However, we decided that somehow or other we would go ahead with the plan, and do Physics and Music ourselves.

In the autumn of 2004, a small working group of the branch committee was set up to make a new plan and carry it through. A branch member, Robyn Halford, heard about the situation and volunteered her services as a supply physics teacher. And Bob Jones, who had been involved with BA Science Week events in Cumbria (and who works at Lancaster University, as do all the other members of the working group) offered his experience with physics demos for schoolchildren.

How the Gig was born

The working group opted for a tour of primary schools in Lancashire and Cumbria, since the distances involved and the geography of our area mitigated against inviting schools to a single venue. We decided to write a drama to help Years 5 and 6 (upper primary-school age) with their Key Stage 2 topics of the planets and sound, as this fitted in well with the funding we had received for a physics and music event. Scripts were created and merged along the way until the central ideas and the name for the Galactic Gig were established.

These were as follows:

• An extraterrestrial visitor called Zubi arrives on Earth with a spaceship to give Cynthia and Hermione, two Earth girls, a trip around the solar system;
• Cynthia (Greek for Moon) is doing a project on the planets;
• Hermione (chosen to sound like harmony without being 100% obvious) is a musician and a party-goer;
• Zubi comes from a world with no air and knows nothing about sound;
• Zubi communicates directly by radio waves, and he communicates with Cynthia and Hermione (in their presence) through their mobile phones;
• the planets appear on a screen, getting bigger as the spaceship approaches so the illusion of a journey is maintained – laptop computers, video projector and white reflecting screen are used;
• the same screen is also used to display pictures of musical instruments plus videos of physics (sound) demos and oscilloscope traces, etc;
• music as well as sounds are used – with a sound system;
• dance sequences are involved;
• throughout the show, Einstein acts as a narrator, using raps to get his message across;
• full costumes, props and versatile stage sets to be used.

We arranged to give two performances every day during the week of 13–17 June 2005, at five different primary-school venues. Other primary schools came along to watch as well.

The venues for the first tour were:

Monday 13 June Kirkby Thore School near Penrith in northeast Cumbria (Appleby Primary School visited).
Tuesday 14 June Croftlands Junior School, Ulverston, in south-west Cumbria (Penny Bridge Primary School visited).
Wednesday 15 June Whitefield Primary School, Penwortham, Preston, Lancashire (Penwortham County Primary School visited).
Thursday 16 June Feniscowles Primary School, Blackburn, Lancashire.
Friday 17 June Archbishop Hutton Primary School, Warton, near Carnforth, Lancashire (North Road Primary School, Carnforth, visited).

Each performance lasted about 35 minutes and was followed by hands-on activities in small groups for the children. A complete session took about 90 minutes.

A Report on the First Day

The weather was inauspicious on Monday 13 June, the first day of the Galactic Gig tour – low clouds and rain as we arrived in Kirkby Thore, near Penrith, in Cumbria. The equipment for the show arrived by transit van, driven up from Lancaster University by Bob Jones. We managed to unload it into the school hall despite the drizzle.

Everyone was nervous – the actors were still reading through their lines, well aware that we had not had a complete rehearsal with the final visuals. Big questions remained about the seating in the hall and the position of the white screen. Somehow, though, everything was eventually set up, the actors got into their outfits, Caitlin Watson (Einstein Year coordinator for the Institute of Physics) arrived from Liverpool and the 30 or so schoolchildren were in their seats. Enter Albert Einstein to introduce the show:

Hello everybody, how do you do
My name is Einstein, and Albert too
I’m here today just to give you a lesson
About space and sound, now ain’t that depressin’
Now just for today we’ll take you on a tour
Round this solar system, and I’ll tell you what’s more
We’ll show you the planets as we go
And tell you ’bout sound and how it does flow
Now let’s get started, on with the show
Catch y’all later, I really must go!

Forty minutes later, the first ever performance of Galactic Gig was over. We were all relieved, but there was no time to relax as it was on with the hands-on experiments. (On subsequent occasions we set these up before the drama, but on the first day we were not that organized.) Finally we were ready, and the pupils really enjoyed learning about vibrating strings, being charged up by a van de Graaff generator, seeing how their singing looked on an oscilloscope and other activities.

By 11.30 a.m. everything had to be put away to allow the school catering staff to set up for lunch. So we headed off to the nearest pub for a meal, where Caitlin provided some immediate feedback about the show and everyone relaxed.

At 1.30 p.m. we were back in the school for another performance, this time for Appleby School pupils. The drama began well, with the actors positioning themselves better. Suddenly there was a crashing sound – the mobile set had partly collapsed. But the actors carried on regardless and the show was again a success.

At the end of the day the performers drove back across the moors to Lancaster to the cry of “two down, eight more performances to go!”

A total of about 255 pupils from the nine schools watched the first tour of the Gig. The children appeared enthralled both by the drama and by the hands-on experience afterwards. We very much hope that an early spark of interest in science, and particularly in physics, has been kindled in some of them. And yes – owing to the cost of equipment hire, prop purchases, van hire, travel etc, we managed to spend all of the £2000!

Future Tours of Galactic Gig

We welcome suggestions for further tours of Galactic Gig or single day performances. Contact Bob Jones robert.jonesATlancs.ac.uk

Here is the link for the GG shows (5 albums in the correct order, one for each day)
Here is the link for the GG dinner

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