REVIEW: ‘Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You’ invites visitors on a wonderful journey through the digestive system at The Science and Industry Museum

Running daily until Sun 9 Jun 2024, the Science and Industry Museum’s Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You brings the hit BBC Children’s TV series to life with an absorbing, exciting and fabulously weird interactive journey through the human digestive system, led by digital appearances from Dr. Xand, Dr. Chris and Dr. Ronx.

After an enthusiastic introductory video from the doctors, visitors enter the exhibit through Dr. Xand’s oversized mouth, which leads into a room dedicated to the first step of the digestive process. Accompanied by a uniquely immersive soundscape of burps, squelches and assorted bodily exclamations, visitors can venture inside a giant set of teeth, work as a team to move food around the mouth and see how their tongue measures up against that of a giraffe or a cat. From there, tract travellers head down the oesophagus – trying out the sphincter pulley system on the way through – and into the stomach, where an array of gleefully gross interactive games and activities demonstrate the fascinating intricacies of puke, including Larry the Vomiting Robot and a ‘whack-a-bac-teria’ response-time game in which visitors try to beat the bad bacteria and save the good.

Upon entering the large intestine, gastric voyagers encounter the most impressive installation of the exhibit: a colossal, impressively realistic pink tube containing a mechanical ‘poo-duction’ line. Visitors turn cogs to work a conveyor belt, ushering a series of poos down the chute. Grabbing a complimentary poo hat as a souvenir, explorers swirl down the giant toilet pan and emerge into the doctors’ interactive lab, rounding off the fun with an array of games and activities.

Throughout Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You, kids and parents alike can learn more about a diverse range of medical conditions  from young patients and medical professionals, alongside an array of curious objects from the museum’s collection.

Promising an ‘epic adventure’ through the human body, Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You offers a captivating odyssey of educational discovery for all ages with a perfectly weighted balance of silliness and science.

Tickets for Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You are available to book now. Walk-up tickets are also available, but advance bookings are encouraged to make sure you don’t miss out.