Just A Quickie with...theatre-maker John Hinton, who specialises in uniting science and art in his performances

FOR the TakeOver Festival's one-off re-location from York Theatre Royal to the National Railway Museum, the committee asked John Hinton to ferret around in the Leeman Road museum's Warehouse.

Theatre-maker Hinton duly responded to the most unusual artefacts in the only way he knows how: through the medium of musical comedy.

Previously John has created performances for the Botanic Garden in Cambridge and the Natural History Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, as well as writing musical works about Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Pythagoras and Norse mythology.

Today and tomorrow, in the NRM's Warehouse, he presents his 30-minute, family-friendly, participatory performance, The Great Train Songery, in his guise as explorer Johnny Acecraft, at 12 noon, 12.45pm, 2pm and 2.45pm.

What did you find in the Warehouse that particularly inspired you and why, John?

"I think the Warehouse at the National Railway Museum is absolutely amazing. It's like no other museum space I've ever seen. What I like about it most is its higgledy-piggledyness; there's no obvious logic to the placement of the artefacts, so when you're wandering around, it feels like you're discovering them for the first time.

"If I had to pick out my personal favourite, it would have to be Louis Brennan's gyroscopic monorail, or Gyrocar: a great invention that was just too clever for its own boots, so people thought it was a lot more dangerous than it really was."

Who is explorer Johnny Acecraft, your alter-ego for The Great Train Songery?

"Johnny Acecraft is the lead singer of intergalactic pop group Spalien Acecraft, who are currently on an extended tour of the outer solar system and have not been seen on planet Earth for a few years now.

"However, Johnny himself was so excited about the prospect of singing some songs specifically about the artefacts in the Warehouse that he jumped through a wormhole and reappeared in York specifically for the occasion."

What do you think of the York Theatre Royal's TakeOver Festival as an event at the NRM?

"The festival seems properly integrated in its environment, in a way that I'm sure will benefit the museum, the theatre and members of the public. The audiences so far have been wonderful, the staff and volunteers are a delight, and of course the city of York is the 'beautifulest' place in the country. There is nowhere I'd rather be."

John Hinton's The Great Train Songery, featuring explorer Johnny Acecraft, National Railway Museum Warehouse, York,  today and tomorrow from 12 noon. Meet at the Warehouse entrance; pay what you can.