Kudos to Wellcome. I don’t think even they had anticipated the massive turnout for this event, despite Time Out listing Quacks and Cures as ‘the event’ to go to last night. The entrance hall was positively buzzing as I arrived at the Euston Road headquarters, and I squeezed through the crowd to make my way upstairs to the main exhibits.

First up was the Club Room, where the programme assured me ‘The Doctor is IN’. A slightly flustered nurse was trying to keep everyone in check as we headed into the Doctor’s office, assuring us all that the Doctor had been waiting to see us. In fact, once inside, we were greeted by three Doctors, all from different time periods. One member of the audience would describe their ailment (in this case, a sore leg), and then the Doctors would debate over the best way to treat said ailment. A brilliant idea, but I would have liked to have had the chance to pop back later once the Doctors had gotten fully warmed up in their roles. Meanwhile, the ‘patients’ in the waiting room were treated to a rolling film of old health-advisory adverts, oddly seeming to focus on wearing the correct size shoes! But it was fascinating to see the messages that used to be spelled out to audiences.

Next I headed downstairs to catch the wonderfully un-PC Dr Socrates Gripenerve talk us through his latest remedies. After suggesting that all the ladies leave the room (medicine apparently has no place for us), he later declared that our problem was that we were “obviously all loose!” Other classic remarks included the fact that there can be no worse punishment than sending someone to Manchester…I’ll say no more on that given that my Brother currently resides there.

Aside from the talks, there seemed to be a real audience interest in the ‘Medicine Now’ and ‘Medicine Man’ exhibits. I don’t think that Wellcome had altered these that much from the usual exhibits (save installing a licensed bar), so the many staff members running around must have been pleased to see the crowds gathering to look at items. However, the biggest crowd was definitely at the leech demonstration. As one man declared, “everyone loves a bloodsucker!” The leeches must have been well-fed because they didn’t try to bite, but one nearly got a face-full of beer when it was dropped and almost landed in someone’s pint.

Finally I joined the queue for the auditorium. I took an educated guess in assuming Ben Goldacre’s talk wouldn’t differ that much from normal, so I avoided the scrum of ladies waiting to get in and instead held out for the final discussion. With the programme listing ‘Orthodox vs. Alternative – Two teams of Doctors battle it out’, I don’t think I can be mocked for expecting an intelligent discussion on the merits and flaws of the different types of treatment. It would have been easy to be disappointed when I discovered the format more accurately resembled an episode of QI, albeit with the title ‘University Challenged’ (original, I know). However, the excellent participants and ‘Game Show Host’ soon won me over and I found myself chuckling out loud a fair few times, despite it starting to drag a little towards the end.

I’m not sure whether the participants were actual Doctors, certainly, I’m don’t think that a genuine homeopath would agree to be trussed up in a tie-dye jacket and aviators, and enter the auditorium clutching a crysta_l ball. Whatever, the case, they all seemed to have extensive medical knowledge, and whilst I can’t say that I learnt much during the quiz, it was certainly very entertaining. I can’t say the same for the host’s knowledge though, with one of my favourite exchanges going something like this:

Host: Where did Che Guevara train as a Doctor?

Host: Is it? I don’t know – we’re doing medicine not ****ing geography!

Other brilliant errors included telling us that both Roger Moore and Tony Blair died of cardiac, seeming surprised that Prescott is still alive and suggesting that, before mesmerism, hypnotism was called BBC3. And whether they were real Doctors or not, the alternatives certainly seemed to be having more fun. Despite having a massive score lead, a blatant fix by the judges led to them being docked 40 points in the final round which of course led to victory for the orthodox team.

I emerged from the building (fairly exhausted) at 11pm, not feeling especially educated but certainly very satisfied (and a free event is always a winner). If Wellcome holds another similar event, I’ll definitely be going back. Though perhaps I’ll prepare myself more for the hoards of other people getting in on this SciComm act.