On 27th September, Rising Ape enters the At-Bristol Planetarium dome to bring you a unique journey into a truly mysterious world: Your own brain.
In partnership with Fayju Games and the University of Bath, Memory Makers will be an evening of unlikely experiences inside your mind. Come along to find out how much your brain can really remember, how easily it can be fooled, and how local researchers are trying to better understand and treat dementia.
You can buy tickets for one of two sessions on the night. Find out more on the At-Bristol event page.
Taking in jelly brain dissections, competitive memory games, and an exhilarating 3D preview of upcoming VR game Cascade, developed in collaboration with neuroscientists — plus a bar and the classic At-Bristol exhibits. Altogether, the evening promises to be a night you’ll definitely want to remember.
Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest challenges faced by the healthcare industry. The evolution of superbugs such as MRSA is evidence that the arms race between antibiotics and bacteria is not a sustainable strategy for preventing infection and keeping patients healthy. Bacteria are able to make infinite changes to their DNA, but there isn’t an infinite supply of new drugs available to target them. Scientists looking for alternative methods to tackle the spread of disease causing bacteria have turned to the natural world for inspiration.
Opens doors, spreads diseases, can be opened by velociraptors. | Image: Public domain
Bacteria in hospitals spread through contact. If a person touches a surface that hosts bacteria, they can pass it along next time they touch a piece of equipment, or a patient. So could making surfaces inherently resistant to bacteria be an effective way of stopping the transfer and spreading of disease?
Traditional approaches to keeping surfaces sterile involve using some sort chemical agent, for example treating socks with silver to keep smelly feet at bay (equally effective against vampires). The disadvantage of chemical treatment is that protection is short lived, and needs constant renewal. Research suggests that silver nanoparticles in socks last not much longer than a few washes, as the silver is rinsed out into the environment where it becomes a poisonous threat to wildlife.
In a paradigm shift in strategy, scientists have proposed a new mechanical approach to keeping surfaces clean. Taking inspiration from the sea, they want to develop a texture that prevents bacteria from spreading by discouraging microbes from settling in the first place.
Hull is filthy. The boat’s hull that is. | Image: Glenn Batuyong
Place almost anything underwater and it won’t be long before a thin film of green slimy phytoplankton will start to settle. This plankton is the trigger for a chain reaction of settlement, as larvae of adhesive animals such as anemones and barnacles will soon follow. This has long been a problem for the shipping industry as fouling like this on ship’s hulls creates a huge amount of drag, slowing down the vessel and adding fuel costs. Even whales, despite their constant movement, will succumb to the nuisance of barnacles and parasites.
But scientists observed that sharks remain clean and crust free, even into old age. For a long time it was thought that sharks move too quickly through the water to give anything any time to settle. Closer inspection of the surface of their skin provided an alternative answer. Sharks are covered in specialised scales called dermal dentacles.
Sharks: Creating the worst place for bacteria to hang out for 100 million years | Image: Pascal Deynat/Odontobase
Dentacle means “small tooth”, a name derived the dentine tissue from which they’re made and the same found in your teeth. Dermal dentacles are highly textured, and when meshed together they form an extremely complex surface, full of micro mountains and canyons. This surface appears to be too unstable for any bacteria to settle and establish a community effectively.
Without the base layer of microscopic organisms, the bigger problem of larger, fouler organisms cannot develop, and the shark remains clean and smooth. This evolutionary advantage then helps the seas’ top predators move swiftly through the water in pursuit of their prey.
‘Phelps who? Bet I’m cleaner and faster.’ | Image: Mark Conlin
Shark skin is already well studied, and has inspired a range of products, famously the Olympic grade swimwear that can reduce drag and shave milliseconds of a swimmer’s time. To use it as a surface for hospitals was the idea of Anthony Brennan, founder of the company Sharklettm , who have trademarked a textured pattern based on the structure of sharkskin. The company claims that Sharklettm surfaces harbour 94% less bacteria than standard worktops and equipment.
Installed in places such as drawer handles and even surgical equipment, Sharklettm could be a cost effective way of reducing the spread of bacteria, as well as use of antiseptic and not to mention the time staff spend cleaning surfaces. What has evolved over millions of years could be a solution to a very pressing 21st century issue.
Running our events, sometimes you know how things will go and sometimes you just have to trust it will work. Sometimes you’ll even be surprised. Running our events in a field at a music festival? You’re guaranteed all three possibilities.
The Rising Ape team took two different interactive events to Einstein’s Garden, the magical centre of Green Man Festival, and both delivered heaps of expected and unexpected outcomes. After last year’s first foray, we really wanted to step up and push what we could offer the good festival goers of Green Man. Without too much modesty, and mainly thanks to those same excellent punters, the weekend surpassed those (un)expectations!
What on future Earth is going on here?
On the Friday, The Audience took over the Omni Tent in a blaze of anticipation and mystery. The newly created theatrical experience full of smartarse AI, hand held LEDs and mob mentality was designed to connect and confuse it’s titular audience (in the best possible way). It certainly succeeded! We’ll leave off talking about what actually happens for now as we don’t want to spoil the experience too much. We’re excited to be planning more performances this autumn, however, so maybe you should come see for yourself…
A member of a research group makes a bold move
And Your Choice came along for the ride as well. Our team-based experience themed on cancer research, and developed with CRUK, was transferred to a completely new style of venue, a giant dome, where it ran as a daily gaming session. It was fantastic to see the game engaging people from all ages and backgrounds over the weekend, with players taking on their different roles within research groups and being totally focused on working together to beat cancer sooner. Read more on what we learned about Your Choice here.
We really want to thank Will, Maddy, Ellen who organise Einstein’s Garden, and everyone else, sound deskers, workshop assistants, who helped us produce the events to their full potential. We look forward to working with you again next year!
Woop woop! The Rising Ape is waving his favourite mango around his head which means, if we consult our English to Ape dictionary, that he is returning to Einstein’s Garden at Green Man Festival for a second year! Hooray!
What’s he doing now? Oh dear, well that’s not very mature at all. Naughty Ape. Although, apparently, those gestures do translate into the fantastic news that there will be TWO Rising Ape events at the festival this year, so even more hooray!
Yes, there’ll be two different Rising Ape experiences in the Garden for 2016: The fast-paced excitement of Your Choice: The Game, and the mysterious immersive theatre of The Audience (Oooooooooh).
Located right in the beating heart of the Festival, Einstein’s Garden is the arena of choice for those seeking weird, unlikely and downright indescribable encounters with science, scientists and people dressed up as robots claiming to be scientists.
A research group makes their first moves. Have they made the right choices?
We’re proud to be bringing two of our most progressive events yet to this special place. Stop by the workshop dome everyday to play Your Choice: The Game and try to beat the high scores of other teams of role playing cancer researchers.
Would you accept an invitation to a festival from this guy?
Then make sure to RSVP for your invite to The Audiencein the Omni Tent, the theatre show where you and your fellow humans will get to prove what you can do together in the potential present of our future… With glowsticks. More on that pretentious nonsense soon, promise.
Such fun at the fest!
All in all, it promises to be a very special weekend of music, mayhem and maybe even maths? Head here for more info on the Rising Ape shows, and all the other wonderous acts and events taking place between 18-22 August at the best festival in the country located deep in the Brecon Beacons, just past Crickhowell, where they burn a huge green man effigy on the final night and Charlotte Church is running the karaoke.
Hope to see you there (especially in the karaoke)!
We’re pleased to announce that Rising Ape Presents… Your Choice is coming to Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff on the 23rd of May!
Join us in this amazing venue to hear the stories of people involved in clinical trials and create your own story by playing as a team of researchers trying to advance our knowledge of cancer.
We’ve been working on improving the Your Choice experience for this next event so expect new elements, even if you’ve been before. To get an idea of what you’re in for, read the blog on the first performance in Bristol.
Once again, we’re excited to be collaborating with the Bristol Improv Theatre and the Cardiff Cancer Research UK Centre. Most of all, we’re excited for you to try competitive cancer research for yourself. So grab your usual pub quiz team, or join another friendly group on the night, and we’ll see you there!
Rising Ape Presents… Your Choice / Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff / 7.30pm 23.05.2016
Cancer research is done all over the world. Sometimes even in Bristol’s theatres…
Back in January, a lovely audience flooded into a temporary CRUK-funded research centre in the basement of the Polish Ex-Service Mens’ Club, otherwise known as the Bristol Improv Theatre.
There, they donned white lab coats and settled down in their teams, dubbed ‘research groups’, for the evening. Some teams had come together and others were made with quick introductions to new ‘colleagues’. Everyone was there to be part of the first Rising Ape Presents… Your Choice, a night of games and theatre based on the choices people make in cancer research.
Throughout the evening there was high stakes dice rolling and tough decisions, there were moving verbatim performances of interviews with patients, there were fluffy and colourful cancerous cells. And there were even prizes.
But before all of that the new research groups sat down at their tables, got acquainted and turned to the first order of business before starting to play the game: drawing cards and finding out who in their varied team they were and what special skills they each had.
“I’m a professor, I get double points! We get points?”
“I’m an interdisciplinary researcher, I can do research in any field. Sounds awesome.”
“I’m an undergraduate… And none of the research in my hand is worth any points? That’s not fair!”
“We might need to get your research to the professor, then”
The groups were learning fast. They were then told by the disembodied, but all knowing, Voice of Progress that their task was to travel around the game board and use their limited resources to do as much research as possible. The end goal? Maximise their science reputation points to come ahead of the other teams.
A research group makes their first moves. Have they made the right choices?
Eagerly, the groups set to their task, racing to the lab spaces on the board. Once there, they were able to splurge their grant money (in the shape of shiny gems) to draw research cards, and then cross their fingers that they could roll a high enough number to allow them to acquire the treatment or benefit on the card, along with its precious science points. Would they spend their money equally on all the possible areas? Or would they focus their efforts on New Treatments, and ignore Better Understanding of Cancer? Tough choices had to be made.
“Publication rejected? Oh no, we’ve lost ten points!”
“Discard a treatment card? What should we lose? Improved Chemotherapy, or Prevention of Side Effects?”
Smarter teams made the most of the ability to meet up on the board to trade cards. Thinking tactically and collaboratively helped these teams overcome what fate had dealt them. Using each individual’s skills for the greater good was key to success and more than one team managed to put all the blame on the Undergraduate or have the Fundraiser working hard to gain gems as fast as possible from the centre of the board.
As time to use their grants ran out, the groups moved faster and faster around the board, rolling, swapping and chatting as they went. All too soon time was up: the dice fell silent, the lights dimmed and the first monologue began.
“You’re taking all that information in, ‘I’ve got cancer. I‘ve got an aggressive form of breast cancer. And now you’re giving me options? Three weeks ago I was dancing on the tables in Benidorm!’”
Listen to the clip above to hear Research Nurse Jane talk about the moment patients find out about a clinical trial.
Jane works at Velindre Cancer Centre and her story highlighted that even when a choice to be part of a trial may be logical, people have strong personal emotions that have to be taken into account.
After Jane’s monologue the research groups broke out for drinks and discussion about their experiences of the first half. Awaiting the teams in the bar was the chance to make their very own cell, not out of DNA and proteins, but from brightly coloured wool and card.
A fluffy handmade cancer cell attached to the threads of clinical trials stories disappearing into the theatre
Everyone jumped straight to it, wrapping wool around and around like their imaginary grant funding relied on it. There were a couple of different methods available, allowing for either carefully made uniform cells to form, or fast growing scrappy blobs, calling to mind a cancerous growth. An acute scissors shortage was overcome to finish them all off and they were hung up on the threads around the theatre by tags containing peoples’ thoughts on cancer research after the first half.
After sitting down for the second half, the lights dimmed again and we heard the story of Elise, a clinical trials patient taking part in research at Velindre, and her thoughts on the choices she made.
The fact that I’d have to come in and have Herceptin anyway, well it tied in with that, because I’d have to come in every three weeks, well I might as well have the trial, because I’d be here anyway.
Listen to the clip above to hear Elise explain why being part of her trial made sense for her.
After the monologue, the research groups were faced with a completely new, red-themed board. On it were the parts of the body where cancers are most often diagnosed. The Voice of Progress again boomed through the room and introduced the rules for the second half: “Move. Kill. Diagnose.” The overall aim? To use all the research and treatment cards the teams had collected in the first half to kill as many cancer cells as possible in 20 minutes.
With each move to a space the researchers could kill cancerous cells there, but with each dice roll they diagnosed more. Who could clear out cancer from whole areas of the body, and who would be overwhelmed? The teams again had to make the most of their unique abilities, ensure they had the right cards in the hands of the right professions and coordinate their movement cleverly around the board.
Some of the teams came into their own in this round, focusing fully on their task and racking up piles of red cancer cells by the roll. With just a minute to go, the activity in the room was at fever pitch, move to a space, roll to kill, roll to diagnose. A 5 second countdown echoed around the room and then the lights dimmed for the final time, coming up on the third performance of the night: Judy, a patient in a clinical trial at Velindre.
“You can have fun through it all as well. I mean, I think you’ve got to, you know, just think positively… I mean, I’d rather people react like that than feel sorry for me. I’d rather make a joke of it, because it makes it easier for them.”
Listen to how Judy keeps her friends and family lighthearted through her clinical trial treatments.
After Judy’s story (and while the scores were totalled) the audience heard from Helen Frost, CRUK Research Engagement Manager. Her words brought home the real impact on peoples’ lives from the huge advances in cancer treatments and the central importance of clinical trials to this success. Then with the scores counted, checked, found to be wrong, and then rechecked… Finally, the first ever winners of Your Choice were announced…
To much applause, Team NRR (Not Real Researchers) were pronounced the the evening’s champions! Thanks to a dominant second round performance and a mightily impressive score of 160-odd, NRR narrowly beat their nearest rival research groups. For their efforts they picked up an entire carrier bag of prizes sourced from local CRUK shops, including snazzy branded badges and a portable version of teenage sleepover classic Twister. Understandably, they were overjoyed.
The blue board of the first half. Research cards, galore!
So with the winners crowned, the actors’ bows taken and an evaluation form filled in by each audience member, the night came to a close. If you were there, we hope you enjoyed it.
Looking back, our aim for this project was simple to state, more challenging to pull off: Engage the audience actively with cancer research and make sure they have a good time doing it. From the start we knew we wanted the audience to hear the real stories of people involved in clinical trials and leave with an awareness of what choices are being made everyday by the thousands of people involved in cancer research, from academic researchers to patients to nurses. We felt a team-based board game, literally built around their real words, would prove a powerful way to for the audience to connect with this subject.
Making this actually happen took four months, multiple journeys to Wales, many late night Slack updates, and countless team pow-wows at Bristol’s Watershed. But, thanks to the efforts of amazing patients, dedicated CRUK staff, the lovely Bristol Improv Theatre, some truly incredible actors, and a wonderful, enthusiastic audience, happen, it did. From our own side, we have learned a huge amount from the experience, so thank you, everyone.
What’s next? Already, there are plans taking shape to take Your Choice to new places and in new directions. We’re extremely excited about what’s happening so keep an eye out for announcements here in the not-at-all-distant future. And, in the meantime, if you have any feedback thoughts on the above, or new ideas that you’d like to tell us about, drop us a comment below or email info@rising-ape.com, we’d love to hear from you.
Join us for an inspiring night of interactive games and verbatim theatre taking you on the journeys of patients, clinicians and researchers involved in cancer clinical trials.
Your Choice is a unique night that combines moving performances of personal clinical trial stories with challenging role play games that put you and your team in the hotseats of cancer researchers.
Rising Ape Collective, in collaboration with Cancer Research UK, have been busily gathering the stories of the people closest to clinical trials — cancer patients, researchers and nurses — so you can experience them for yourself. And there’ll be prizes!
Why do clinical trials matter?
One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. Whether you develop it yourself, or it takes hold of someone close, it’s a sad reality we all must face.
But, crucially, the future is brightening all the time. Half of people diagnosed with cancer today will survive, and that’s down to the work of countless scientists, doctors and nurses who tirelessly lead the fight against cancer. But the new treatments they develop wouldn’t be possible without the patients who choose to participate in vital clinical trials.
Clinical trials provide the evidence to drive forward research into treatments for cancer by discovering which therapies work best. By choosing to opt in to a trial, patients choose to further our collective knowledge of cancer, so we can beat it sooner.
Your Choice is all about celebrating the extraordinary contributions of these everyday people. Come down with your team to the Bristol Improv Theatre and discover the choices everyone is making about cancer.
Doors open at 7.30pm. Tickets are £5-£7. Follow the link below to book yours in advance:
This summerCancer Research UK Cardiff approached Rising Ape Collective and asked if we’d like to develop an immersive event based around clinical trials and patient involvement. After successful initial discussions, planning and research, we are very pleased to now start shouting about it!
In January, Rising Ape and the Bristol Improv Theatre will host an evening that gets you, our audience, right in the shoes of the people making clinical trials and cancer research happen. Like all our events it will be audience-centred and engaging as hell. But this particular subject means we get the chance to try something even more human, moving and relatable.
It can be easy to take for granted the impact cancer research has had on our world, especially if you’re lucky enough to lack personal experience of this impact. In the seventies, 1 in 4 people diagnosed with cancer died. Over the last 40 years, thanks to the work done by the people of organisations like Cancer Research UK, survival rates have doubled. This astonishing progress would not be possible without the thousands of real people, patients included, from all backgrounds who come together to make it happen through projects like clinical trials. These people continue to work together every day and it’s their contributions we want you to experience.
For all it’s success, cancer research is an area that can seem every bit as complex, confusing and, let’s face it, as scary, to most of us as the diseases it’s working to understand and combat. How are new drugs discovered? Who decides what treatments patients get? How do we know what works? It may not sound like the obvious choice for the next Rising Ape Presents…
But we’re excited.
We’re excited because we get to highlight the human stories behind clinical trials: the place where scientists, nurses, doctors, and (most of all) patients work together to beat cancer sooner.
We’re excited to bring together a whole medley of people, patients, performers, researchers, game makers and others, to forge new conversations and understandings in an effort to create something unique.
We’re excited to collaborate with both the Bristol Improv Theatre and Cancer Research UK to make this possible. The first is an old friend we are loving working more closely with, and the second is a renowned organisation of committed and passionate people that have given us the opportunity to push ourselves in new ways.
And we’re beyond excited for you to be a part of it, whether in Bristol or, who knows, even beyond?
So look out for production updates/creative tantrums/over-excitement here on the site and @RisingApeTweets, @CRUKCardiff and www.improvtheatre.net and keep the end of January as free as Willy when he soars over that Canadian sea wall, thrashing his big tail. Rising Ape, BIT and Cancer Research UK will be waiting for you.
We made it back. Thanks to the Rising Ape Space Agency we have returned from Mars and finished our thorough debrief with the professional medical staff here at RASA Mission Control in Bristol. But the memories of our time with you Martian colonists will stay with us, at least until the same time next year.
In total eight teams signed up to compete in the first ever gameshow held on Mars, including Superstars, Team Uranus, Space Oddity, and Team Placenta. The prize? A luxury hamper containing precious bonus rations of ice-cream (freeze dried), a foil blanket for the cold Martian night, and an extra regulation RASA crew t-shirt. The be-tophatted host, James Riley, introduced his two android helpers, A-TON and E-STEL, and the serenest super computer this side of Orion, DAVIDBOT 3000, and then the games were afoot.
Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, Ash, our engineer, and a veteran of a simulated Mars mission who helped us devise the rounds was unable to attend the festival at the last moment. Understandably, these sorts of things can happen in space missions, and it gave us an opportunity to practice an important skill for all astronauts to have: improvisation.
Into the breach stepped Zoe of the National Space Centre, who with minimal (read: no) rehearsal delivered three motivating speeches throughout the show on the importance of Teamwork, Communication and Psychological Understanding to a successful space mission. You colonists made our guest very welcome and there were loud cheers for her inspiring words.
Round 1 was all about Teamwork. It saw two teams race against the clock to navigate a giant exposed wire that formed part of the hab’s airlock system. A steady hand and excellent coordination between team members was required to succeed. Amazingly, both teams completed the challenge in the time allowed, but due to touching less exposed wires, Team Uranus made it through to the final.
In the second round, Communication, two teams engaged in a Charades-off based around various space-related titles in pop culture. Incredibly this proved even more difficult than on a Christmas evening after too many sherries when your nan has to act out Shawshank Redemption. Perhaps the pressure of the crowd, or the weight of the potential prize was weighing on the colonist’s minds, but in the end Space Oddity qualified despite only getting two film titles correct! Special mention must be made for their rivals, Team Placenta, who managed to describe Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus for their only correct answer. using only frantic pointing. The colony administration salutes your dedication!
For the third qualification round, the teams had to guess the most popular answers to the Colony-wide survey that was distributed shortly before the weekend. The Colony Administration would like to thank all who volunteered their personal psychological data, and to let those who selected ‘Lighthouse Family – Lost in Space’ know that they are being closely monitored.
In an extremely tense round, the young whippersnappers of Superstars came from behind to steal the win from Team Uranus, after correctly deciding that most Colonists would want to call their parents for their annual phonecall (aww, you softies). Full results of the survey will be available soon for those who really want to know what the Colony’s favourite ice-cream (freeze dried) flavour is. Hint: it’s not ‘Chorizo’.
And so the final round was upon us. At this point the downpour was really trying to make sure everyone believed there was liquid H20 on Mars which will have come as welcome news to those early 21st Century rovers that we saw gathering dust out on the plains. The three qualified teams remained resolute and threw themselves into the final challenge. Tasked with carrying multiple radioactive pellets all the way around Einstein’s Garden, using only a custom made hand-held safety transporter, which only looked a bit like a big spoon covered in foil and hazard tape, before throwing them into the Colony furnace from a safe distance to save the habitat’s rapidly shutting down life-support system…. Well, let’s just say they nailed it.
In the end, Team Uranus emerged victorious, out throwing the others by some margin, and claiming the extra rations as their prize. Like true Colony comrades they immediately shared the spoils with the remaining teams, in a scene which nearly, nearly brought a virtual tear to DAVIDBOT 3000’s stoic pixels. As if in awe of what it had just witnessed, at this point the rain finally stopped.
We’d like to thank Maddy for letting us on the Solar Stage for this escapade, Jen and the crew of Einstein’s Garden for solving our problems and making us feel so welcome, Ash and Zoe for their contributions to the show and, most of all, the eight teams of brave colonists who stuck it out through the deluge and competed with such admirable gusto. The future of Martian colonies looks safe in your hands.
And so, as the lights of the vast domed Green Man festival habitat went down, we tidied away the set and DAVIDBOT 3000, before celebrating the success of the first ever gameshow on Mars by dancing around to some very fine musical acts. Circulating rumours of the white suited RASA team being repeatedly mistaken for the band Super Furry Animals and engaging in 5am sing-alongs with Charlotte Church can be neither confirmed, nor denied….
It’s fair to say that ‘Rising Ape Presents… Eruption!’ was a blast. You became vulcanologists for the evening, vulcanologists who knew a surprising amount about the career of Pierce Brosnan. Using your in-depth knowledge of lava flows, increasing pH levels and the correct pronunciation of Ejyafjallajokull you came to the aid of the perilously located town of Rising Apeton. You were then regaled by researcher Nicky Young and her tales of studying Hawaiian volcanoes and dodging Aberdeenian seagulls. Thank you once again for making it a fantastic evening (and some of the most tortuous quiz team names ever imagined)!
There was just one problem. The next day, when your work colleagues asked what you did the night before, they probably didn’t believe you, it all sounded so incredible. That’s where we can help.
Please enjoy the video evidence of your heroics in our highlights reel below, and show those doubting friends of yours what they missed out on. We hope you like it.
Finally, a massive cheers to the highly professional crew of Raw Frames for making the film. We can heartily recommend them to anyone looking for a video of their event.
You can buy tickets for one of two sessions on the night. Find out more on the At-Bristol event page.
Rising Ape Collective 