Above: The Natural History Museum where the Doctor Who science night took place. Credit: Mélissa Azombo
Science Fun At the Natural History Museum’s Doctor Who Night
by Mélissa M Azombo
In October 2019, Whovians and science enthusiasts alike descended on the Natural History Museum Doctor Who night at the London venue, which coincided with their monthly Lates.
The popularity of the event was shown via the mass queue that formed outside its TARDIS & Moon room before its 18:30 start. Once inside, visitors could marvel at the TARDIS in front of them and the scale modelled lit-up moon from a more permanent exhibition, which hung over it. Typical of a Natural History Museum (NHM) Lates event, there was lots more to explore. These nights are designed for adults to explore science, from stands with museum scientists to panels and screenings.
One visitor said “I love Doctor Who and for the first time I was able to see the TARDIS to take a picture and to see the monsters – how they create everything and the effects.”
Above from left: Doctor Who monster prosthetic heads of Tritovore, Silurian, the Minotor and Judoon lay on a table next to Tim Berry and Charlie Bluett from the Doctor Who Special Effects team, Richard Sabin, scientist at the Natural History Museum.
This was the Naturally Monstrous talk, which proved very popular with audiences. There, Charlie Bluett from the Doctor Who special effects team revealed that the Cybermen were probably the most expensive creatures to make. He also took the time to explain how he got into his Doctor Who career.
“Creative studies, Art & DT & being on the sports field were the areas I excelled in, so finishing school, I worked at Pizza Express to save some money to put together a portfolio and contacted a guy called Dick Smith,” he said. The late Dick Smith of the Godfather trilogy had recommended him for his first job. From there, he started working on music videos before eventually working at Millenium FX, where his first job was to make a pig head, presumably for the Daleks In Manhattan series 2 episode.
Above: Doctor Who’s Tim Berry and Charlie Bluett demonstrate Judoon animatronics.
Tim Berry, also on special effects, talked about the animatronics of creatures like the Judoon and building monsters, showcasing a quick demo. NHM’s own Richard Sabin discussed the science behind the creatures.
In another room, Doctor Who Series 3 episode Smith and Jones aired in rotation to give more fans the opportunity to catch the screening.
Visitors could enrich their experience at pop-up stations. They gathered to hear more about Mars and find out more about rocks from space called chondrites and tektites.
“Chondrites are a type of meteorite and tektites are an example of a way of identifying that there’s been an impact,” Natural History Museum PhD student Helena summarised. “If you imagine you drop a pebble into water, and you get a splash of water, if you “drop” an asteroid into the Earth, you get “splashes” of Earth. So basically, it melts everything so then that material will splash out and as it’s travelling through the sky, it will solidify. So, you get these really bizarre droplet shapes.”
For a more hands-on approach, the opportunity to take part in the Large Mission to Mars workshop was on the table. Participants could code a rover using Lego robotics to journey through a large scale replica of the red planet’s surface.
The night was not complete without the opportunity to look down a microscope. Natural History Museum scientists gave visitors the opportunity to see just how large grains of sand really are.
A visitor at the event said “I loved it. There was so much to do.” The BBC Doctor Who – Natural History Museum event was a huge success, where visitors could pre-book tickets for a silent disco that followed.
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