Is it just movie make-believe, or could Kevin Costner really turn his own urine into drinking water?
This is just one of the questions that Dr Jonathan Hare, of the University of Sussex’s Creative Science Centre, will try to answer in the new series of Hollywood Science, which returns to BBC2 on April 2 (7.30pm). The show, which is co-presented by actor Robert Llewellyn (of Red Dwarf), once again takes scenes from well-known films and examines whether or not the science is at all plausible. With the aid of a few ‘kitchen sink’ props, Dr Hare and Llewellyn will try to work out if Costner’s thirst-quenching solution in the film Waterworld could really be done; whether Brad Pitt and Ed Norton, stars of Fight Club, could really make soap out of liposuction fat; and if 007 could really escape drowning in A View to a Kill by sucking on a car tyre. The series of four episodes also include stunts from Escape from Alcatraz, The Great Outdoors, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Thomas Crown Affair. “It’s a brilliant way of getting science across,” says Dr Hare, whose work at the University
