Zombie Science at Etcetera Theatre, Camden

Zombie films are now more popular than everything except baking competitions (just wait for the inevitable crossover). As such, it’s easy to forget the serious threat that would be posed by the dead coming back to life and eschewing a catch up with loved ones for a good chomp on the nearest brain. Luckily, Doctor Austin, at the Zombie Institute for Theoretical Studies has this looming threat under hand, and he’s on a mission to educate us all.

Our host, Doctor Austin, is an excellent narrator, mixing comedy with biology to great effect. There’s practical demonstrations, audience interaction and a lot of references to painful divorces. He remained chirpy throughout the show, gleefully punning his way through audience interactions while dosing out healthy anecdotes of his research back at his headquarters in Glasgow.

The show itself is a whirlwind lecture, covering three modules designed to educate and encourage people to take the right actions during an undead outbreak. The first module, on the symptoms of zombieism, contains some wonderful gags, including the poisoning of an assistant in order to demonstrate that people can’t come back from the dead.

The second module looks at what could cause a zombie outbreak. At this stage, the show takes a curious diversion into the real world of illness, with Doctor Austin going into the causes and symptoms of prion diseases. These are an incurable classification of disease that essentially go around your brain destroying it one part at a time, and include the infamous mad cow disease.

Drawing parallels between one cause of a prion disease (cannibalism) and the brain-eating nature of the modern zombie is a risky move, but luckily the tone remains friendly, as the education and comedy mingle freely.

Of course, it’s all set up for the big finale. How to defend yourself against a zombie, featuring fruit, a feather duster, and a crossbow. It makes for excellent physical comedy. At this point it becomes less of a lecture and more of a tutorial – with debate between audience and lecturer on what strategy would work best. This could only be possible in such an inclusive atmosphere, which the first two acts of the lecture have endevoured to create.

I left Zombie Science more knowledgeable about what to do in a situation that would be, let’s face it, pretty surprising if it actually happened. From a comedy show, that’s pretty impressive. Doctor Austin handles some dark subject matter through the lense of a spoof lecture, and in doing so makes some tough subjects pretty darn fun.

Zombie Science was on at:

Etcetera Theatre
265 Camden High Street
Camden
NW1 7BU

Tel: 020 7482 4857