The worlds of science and art are colliding in Shoreham over the next few weeks, as the Ropetackle Centre and the University Of Sussex join forces for the Adur Festival.

Top scientists will be giving talks and working with schoolchildren to bring science to life.

“We wanted to do something that was more stimulating and had more of an educational element to it,” says Ropetackle trustee Martin Allen, who has organised the Art Of Science programme this year.

The result has been a set of events involving some of the leading names in particle physics, human senses, earth science and microbiology. One of the most imaginative is a collaboration between Shoreham-based guitarist Richard Durrant, projection artist Malcolm Buchanan-Dick and Professor Philip Harris. Symmetry, Scales And The Origin Of Everything, which examines the creation of the universe, will be at the Ropetackle on Wednesday, June 17.

“Professor Harris is one of the world’s best-known particle scientists,” says Martin. “He worked on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, among others.

“Richard has written the music by taking some of the notations from the particle acclerator project and putting it through an elaborate computer system.”

Another collaboration between a musician and a scientist is coming courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn of the Lost And Found Orchestra and world authority on the human senses Professor Cornelius Kros.

Music To Your Ears, on Wednesday, June 10, will explain how the ear makes sense of music and how it can distinguish between different instruments playing the same notes. The show will also feature young musicians’ performances on instruments made from recycled materials.

Microbiologist Professor Sue Hartly is working with pupils from Boundstone School to explain the science of plants, food and digestion in Grasses Bite Back on Friday, June 19.

And the Four Professors series will also feature a lecture on the Living Landscape on Friday, June 12, from Professor Robert Allison, with projections by Malcolm Buchanan-Dick and references to the Festival’s ongoing Living Landscape art exhibition.

“We are hoping this will give us a basis for an ongoing arts and science theme between the university and Ropetackle,” says Martin. “We wanted to create something different from other festivals, but not just for the sake of it.”

The three-week long programme still features a lot of the old Adur favourites, with Glastonwick starting tonight at Church Farm, and the official launch of the Adur Festival in North Road, Lancing, from 10am tomorrow.

Among the events to look out for over the next few weeks are this weekend’s Sompting Festival, next weekend’s Adur Food Festival in Shoreham town centre and the Adur Lions Donkey Derby in Buckingham Park, Shoreham. On the drama side, Adur Theatre Company is performing Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus at the Shoreham Centre, and The Wick Theatre Company’s version of Peter Gordon’s Murdered To Death is at the Barn Theatre.

Art lovers can follow the Adur Art Trail from tomorrow, featuring more than 30 separate exhibitions by local artists.

And the Ropetackle has a packed programme hosting Mark Steel, The Animals, The Noise Next Door, and novelist Peter James in the week his new Shoreham-set crime thriller Dead Tomorrow is released.

  • For more information about the Adur Festival visit www.adurfestival.com. For tickets for the Ropetackle events – from £5 – call 01273 464440 or visit www.ropetacklecentre.co.uk.