Professor Brian Cox, Wolverhampton Civic Hall - review

Quite a lot to fit into a three-hour show but the one-time keyboard player – who recalled last being the venue while playing in the band, Dare – did his best, while trying to make sure he did not lose too much of the audience along the way.

The first half the show came in a shotgun approach as he fired theories, explanations, equations and formulas at us.

There are 'only' two trillion galaxies we can see in the observable universe – what's beyond that we do not know, and within those galaxies there are 20 billion earth-like planets. How about those facts for starters?

The mid-session Q&A – which brought his friend and sparring partner, Robin Ince, to the stage, who did a great job breaking up the show – also brought about the possibility of computer simulation, the theory we are all living in a computer-based world that is not real, very much like the Matrix.

What surprised me – and I'm sure others too – was the professor's response, which was that years from now it could be possible, as well as artificial intelligence being given consciousness. A bit like the Channel 4 series, Humans.

He said it was difficult to disagree with or disprove with theory – so watch this space.

For me the most mind-bending section of the whole evening, probably because it was the section that made the most sense to me, was about the Big Bang.

As Prof Cox explained it all happened, using the fascinating Inflation theory, when the two trillion stars, mentioned earlier, were condensed into a space the size of the Civic Hall, and when the pressure and heat became too much, there was a Big Bang, which formed our own 'bubble' of universes.

But then he hit us with the inflationary multiverse theory, which means our bubble could be just one of many that form part of an infinitely expanding universe growing as quickly as the Big Bang – but all around us, all of the time.

That makes earth a speck within the milky way, which is a speck within two trillion galaxies we can see, which is a speck within the bubble of universes we sit in, which in turn is a speck with the infinitely expanding inflationary multiverse.

Is your brain hurting yet? Because mine certainly was, but in beautifully, mind-expanding sort of way.

The entire audience was on the edge of their seat throughout and Prof Cox was deservedly given huge applause at the end.

It seems his live shows have gripped the nation as much as his fascinating and fantastically crafted documentary TV series, which have led to a legion of fans across the globe.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of the show can be summed up like this. My friend John and I were completely entranced throughout.

He works in insurance and I'm a journalist, neither of us exactly oozing with scientific knowledge, but we each came away with a new found of love of the basics of science and maths, and a thirst to learn more.

The fact the civic can sell out for a talk focussing on the sciences, maths and engineering can only be a good thing and long may Professor Brian Cox and those who follow in his footsteps ensure it continues.

By James Driver-Fisher