REVIEW: ‘Alton Brown Live: Eat Your Science’ brings food experiments to Broadway
NEW YORK — Alton Brown is a hoot, and his new touring show, Alton Brown Live: Eat Your Science, is a hoot and a half. The iconic TV personality, who asked interesting questions for more than a decade on Food Network’s Good Eats, pairs audience participation with engaging science for a nearly three-hour show centered on food.
Brown’s approach to the culinary arts has always been chemical, physical and biological in nature. He is fascinated by how items are created, mixed together and react with one another. He’s certainly able to create and critique a scrumptious meal, but his end goal is understanding and education.
Eat Your Science, which finishes up a week-long Broadway engagement Sunday, Nov. 27, explores several different areas, including the science behind popcorn, drink mixology and even what can go wrong after eating a bad airport shrimp cocktail. Brown brings the audience through these lessons with a series of original songs, talkshow bits and live experiments with the help of audience members.
It’s best not to ruin the fun and magic of the show, so details on the shenanigans will remain a mystery. However, it’s safe to say that the audience participants are brought through a series of hilarious and potentially embarrassing experiments. No wonder his team has them sign a waiver before getting their hands dirty.
The show has a definite structure; however, Brown and his team keep the evening loose and improvised. At a recent Saturday performance, audience members sometimes shouted out from the seats, and Brown shouted back. The TV personality saw someone filming with their smartphone, and he respectfully admonished them to create memories not videos. There’s a give and take at his live performance.
The show can be trimmed, but it seems that depending on the mood of the crowd, Eat Your Science can swing 15 minutes in either direction. The Saturday performance I attended came in at just under three hours. Amazingly, the show didn’t lag under the many songs and comedy bits.
The first routine envisions Brown as a food god (the one-liner about Guy Fieri is probably the best joke of the night). Because he gains a comical rapport with his bandleader nearby, the entire monologue feels like a late-night talkshow.
When he breaks into songs — both rock and Devo-influenced synth pop — a large projection screen helps the audience follow along with the clever lyrics. The same projection helps those sitting in the cheap seats to see the experiments up close.
Brown is a unique personality with a unique trove of knowledge on food and science. Luckily for us, he’s dedicated his career to sharing these munchie morsels with audiences throughout the world.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Alton Brown Live: Eat Your Science finishes its Broadway engagement at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre Sunday, Nov. 27. The live show will continue on a U.S. tour in 2017. Click here for more information. Rating: 
