Brighton farmer's fiery meteorite (From The Argus)
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Brighton farmer's fiery meteorite
6:30pm Monday 25th February 2013 in News By Kimberly Middleton, Acting chief reporter
Mark Sansom with Professor Brian Cox
He helped celebrity magician Derren Brown to convince a young man he was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and scientist Brian Cox to unravel the universe.
Now a fiery Brighton farmer is recreating a meteorite hitting earth for a Channel 4 documentary about the recent impacts in Russia.
Mark Sansom, 32, runs Devils Dyke Farm as well as Brighton Fireworks.
After a decade putting on stunning displays, he also started to specialise in special effects for TV and film with BrightFire Pyrotechnics.
Last night Beat the Ancestors launched on Channel Five hosted by eco-warrior and engineer Dick Strawbridge and was filmed entirely on Mr Sansom’s land, utilising his skills to rebuild some of history’s most impressive machines.
For nine weeks the teams built a medieval machine gun, a Roman war machine, a Byzantine fire boat, a Gothic mega crane and Churchill’s rocket parachute on the land on the outskirts of Brighton and Hove.
Next on his work list is recreating the shower of tiny meteorite fragments for a documentary about the sensation in Russia that injured about 1,200 people.
Image by Yekaterina Pustynnikova
The documentary will air on Channel 4 in He is also currently working on a programme for National Geographic that will be filmed in Las Vegas, a take on chemistry and science-related street magic.
Speaking about Beat the Ancestors, Mr Strawbridge said: “It is great fun and a little scary.
“I love the fact that, if we are limited to the materials our forebears had, we really struggle to design and out-perform machines centuries-old, even with all our 21st century knowledge and skills.”
Mr Sansom said: “It was all very impressive. The main idea was to take an old idea and use modern ways to make it better.”
Mr Sansom has also been involved with Jamie and Jimmy's Food Fight Club, Brainiac live show and toured with the Bigger Bang Chemistry show with Dr Hal Sosabowski, Principal Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Brighton.
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