Cosmic UCL - UCL CELEBRATES 200 YEARS OF SCIENCE WITH STAR ALUMNI & PROFESSORS

A marvellous mash up of science, comedy, music and more.

Cosmic UCL continues University College London’s 200th anniversary celebrations with a special one-night-only showcase of curiosity, creativity and the joy of discovery.

Presented by UCL’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and produced by The Cosmic Shambles Network, Cosmic UCL brings together some of the UK’s most inspiring and award-winning enthusiasts of science, engineering, medicine and the brilliantly unexpected details that make our world a wonderful and fascinating place.

Hosted by physicist, author and broadcaster Helen Czerski (BBC’s Rare Earth, Blue Machine), Cosmic UCL will feature familiar faces and voices from broadcast, and popular science, including:

-          Dame Maggie Aderin is a space scientist, BAFTA-nominated television presenter and cohost of the world’s longest-running science programme BBC’s The Sky at Night.

-          Jon Butterworth is an award-winning professor of physics at UCL and is currently working at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.

-          Kevin Fong OBE is a doctor, broadcaster and science communicator known for his unique career traversing emergency medicine, astrophysics and space exploration. He has worked for NASA and hosts The NHS: Who Cares?

-          Mark Miodownik MBE is a material scientist, engineer, broadcaster and award-winning author of Stuff Matters.

-          Adam Rutherford is a geneticist, scientist, broadcaster and award-winning author who has also been a scientific consultant on several movies including Ex Machina and Annihilation.

This is just a snapshot of some of the exciting speakers lined up for the event, more to be announced! The evening will also consist of music, comedy and surprise performances from UCL linked artists.

Professor Helen Czerski (UCL Department of Mechanical Engineering) said: “A university is a community of people who never stop asking “why?” installed on a campus containing enough libraries, workshops and laboratories to answer an infinity of questions. UCL has been fizzing with new ideas and building new things for 200 years: a factory creating the curious and the crucial. We’re not only enthusiastic about the ideas themselves, but also about getting them out into the world so that everyone has access to the most joyful, interesting and useful things created on our campus. As part of our 200th birthday celebration, we’re going to be putting the weird, wonderful and world-changing on stage through a fusion of science, comedy and music. Come for the fun, and stay to see the future”.

TICKET INFO

Location: Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AH

Date: Wednesday 6th May 2026

Time: 7:30pm

Price: £15 (£12 Concessions)

Ticket Link: https://www.bloomsburytheatre.com/event/2026/05/cosmic-ucl

Box Office: 020 3108 1000 [email protected]

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher amanda frost