And now for something completely different: a stage show based on the Horrible Science books by Nick Arnold and Tony De Saulles. The children’s books have won both the Aventis and Rhone-Poulenc prizes and sold over 10 million copies around the world, with their appealing combo of attractive illustrations, medley of trivia and science-is-fun bravado.

Anything that gets so popular these days inevitably gets a stage treatment. The show sees schoolboy hero Billy Miller and computer TIM exploring the messy world of science.

Together they’ll face both dreadful dangers and putrid puns! – encountering fatal forces such as gravity, electricity and magnetism. They’ll learn how to defeat some menacing 6ft high bacteria and other microbe monsters who want to inflict their killer diseases on humans and they’ll show Baron Frankenstein how the different parts of the body fit together!

As you’ve probably gathered, it’s geared up for families (with kids over 6).

Horrible Science runs at Bloomsbury Theatre 5-16 October (box office 020 7388 8822). Tickets £18.50, children £12.50, concessions £13.50.