Backstage at the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

Jo Montgomery, Scientific Training and Data Integrity Manager, tells us about her experience behind the scenes of the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures, their flagship engagement event for young people attending in person and broadcast globally.

An email pinged into my inbox one busy autumn afternoon. I had to read it twice before the words sank in: “we think your skills and experience would be really valuable”; shortly followed by performing an excited little dance! I was honoured to join the Demo Team for this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, presented by Dr Chris van Tulleken – NHS doctor, academic, author and television presenter. My experience and expertise in science communication and science education, including creating fun and engaging, hands-on science activities (as founder of science education consultancy Dr Jo Science Solutions) stood me in good stead for the task ahead; working with the rest of the team to create and develop eye-catching demonstrations, props and experiments which are a trade mark feature of the Christmas Lectures. My experience teaching about the digestive system was useful, but to my surprise, it was my expertise in modelling different types of poo and my many poo facts which allowed me to flourish!

The 2024 lectures were about…

• The Truth About Food: From tastebuds to toilet – all about the digestive system
• The Truth About Food: How food makes us – what’s going on inside our cells
• The Truth About Food: The big food hack – changing diets and the way food is produced.

The Christmas Lectures are the culmination of a year-long undertaking in organisation and planning at The Royal Institution of Great Britain. A few months before the event, I was in communication with the head of the Demonstration team to discuss ideas and how my skillset might fit in and be of value. In November, the demo team moved off site to focus on developing ideas aligned with the lecture scripts – and I was enlisted to visit a magician prop building company for a special demo! In December, I joined the wider team in London to start building, developing and tweaking the props and experiments.

The lectures are fast-paced and action-packed with loads of props, demonstrations and experiments and many people are involved. I was given responsibility for a number of demos and props, especially in lecture one which was about the digestive system; I did a lot of sewing (including 54 meters squared of fabric to represent the surface area of Dr Chris van Tulleken’s small intestine, as well as stitching together a model digestive system), and spray-painting things gold! Including the spectacular mini toilets for the ‘variable poo machine’, which received models of normal, constipated and diarrhoea poo made of shredded paper, water and modelling clay – as well as an explosive condition, giardiasis, represented by a spectacular elephant’s toothpaste chemical reaction. I made rectums out of gold vinyl-wrapped piping and balloons! I created signage, made svg files, used a vinyl cutting machine, wrapped pots of ice cream, held onto ropes and pulleys, transported liquid nitrogen, perfected a butter making churn and turned Dr Xand van Tulleken upside down!

During filming and rehearsals, I worked backstage to set things up and operate equipment and you can even see me on screen a few times, bringing props onto set. It was fast-paced, full on and exciting. Deadlines were tight with changes, tweaks and requests coming thick and fast and it was exhilarating working as part of a team to make these Christmas Lectures the best!

The week before the lectures were filmed, the Demo Team ran a trial run, called a ‘scratch night’ in front of a live audience of children and families in the iconic Faraday lecture theatre at The Royal Institution, to see what worked – and what didn’t – with the demos and to fine tune experiments. Although I’ve presented in this venue before, it is always exciting  - if slightly nerve-wracking waiting in the wings, thinking of the incredible scientists who have done so before - to stand in front of a keen and enthusiastic audience in this auspicious space, and this was a really fun night with the audience being let into a secret about the content and processes.

Dr Chris and Dr Xand (Chris’s identical twin brother and co-presenter on CBBC’s Operation Ouch!) were both exceptionally professional, kind, fun, and generous – even filming a short video to share with the children I teach (we had just covered the digestive system with year 4 students) and are exactly as they appear on the TV.

It was a phenomenal experience to be involved in the famous Christmas lectures and one I will never forget!

You can watch the Christmas Lectures in the UK on iPlayer and they are now also available for the rest of the world on the Royal institution’s YouTube channel Watch the Royal Institution CHRISTMAS LECTURES archive | Royal Institution.

This year’s Christmas Lecturer has just been announced, and I’m very excited to see Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock explore space this Christmas!

Thanks to both the Babraham Institute and the organisations I work for with Dr Jo Science Solutions for allowing me the time and supporting me to be involved. The UKRI are supporters of The Royal Institution of Great Britain and the theme of the 2024 Christmas Lectures, the Truth About Food, and the message about the effects of changing diets, aligns with the ageing research of The Babraham Institute. Thanks to The Royal Institution of Great Britain for inviting me to be a part of The Christmas Lectures!