Albert Einstein’s Relativitively Speaking
Written and Performed by John Hinton
Tangram Theatre Company
Performed in English
Here’s a treasure… handled with something close to brilliance… for respect, theatricality, wit and decency, this one’s a winner.
Libby Purves, The Times
Hinton expertly makes the most complicated of concepts easily intelligible… Delightful.
British Theatre Guide
A masterclass. Genius, Mr Hinton, Einstein would be proud.
The Sunday Times
It’s Atomic! Tickets may go at the speed of light.
Broadway Baby
The clearest – and certainly the funniest – explanation of the Theory of Relativity I know.
John Lloyd (creator of QI)
It’s funny, but also mind-expanding – and there aren’t many shows that achieve both so well.
The Big Issue
Gloriously scatty… a winning formula.
The Stage
A winning combination – fantastic performances, writing and concept.
The Brighton Argus
Winner – Three Weeks Editors Edfringe Award
Winner – Adelaide Fringe Award
Winner – Off West End Award
The year is 1933 and Albert is giving his inaugural lecture on Special and General Relativity at Princeton University. But it’s tough when your two wives and your mother keep coming in, your equations are being used to make atomic bombs and there’s the small (rather large) matter of the Universe to explain. Then again, Albert is the cleverest man on the planet as well as the proud owner of the über-coolest moustache in science so buckle in for a musical comedy lecture like no other, featuring peer-reviewed explanations of his landmark scientific theories, guest star rapper MC Squared, and the wurst sausage joke ever…
Cast
John Hinton (Albert Einstein), Jo Eagle (Mileva Maric, Elsa Einstein, Albert’s Mother)
Creative Team
Daniel Goldman (Director), John Hinton (Text, Music and Lyrics), Jo Eagle (Text, Music and Lyrics)
After the success of our show about Charles Darwin, John and I both wanted to work together again and as we are both excited by science and big ideas, we toyed with a few different great scientists before settling on Albert.
What was fascinating in terms of making this show was learning about and then capturing the complexity of the man himself; a pacifist who helped create the atom bomb, a great man who betrayed his first wife and married his cousin, a scientist who discovered so much but spent the last years of his life searching for a general theory.
It was also much more science heavy than our Darwin show. And that meant spending lots of time working with the brilliant Darren “Daz” Baskill at the University of Sussex. Daz is an amazing science communicator and his help explaining the science and then correcting our mad attempts to make them interactive audience moments was invaluable… and always fun.
Coda: Albert Einstein was always a hero of mine. As a young Jewish kid who loved space and science, Einstein was a superhero to me. A Jewish scientist and thinker whose superpower was his brain. And to have a strong Jewish moment in the show continues to mean a lot to me and I’m grateful to John for taking it on so beautifully.
All photos © Alex Brenner