It’s been five years since the last series of Operation Ouch!, the gleefully knockabout kids’ medical-slash-biology CBBC show that made stars of its identical twin doctor co-hosts, Chris and Alexander van Tulleken.
They’ve got considerably more famous in the interim: Chris made a splash with his book Ultra Processed People (about the effect ultra-processed foods are having on us) while ‘Xand’ has presented numerous documentaries and is a regular on the BBC’s Morning Live.
There is a new series of Operation Ouch! due in 2026, but in its absence the twins have kept the Ouch fires burning via live shows. This latest one debuted on an Australian tour in January 2025, which does raise the suspicion that the Van Tullekens basically do this for a laugh in between their increasingly serious ‘adult’ work.
In case the name somehow didn’t give it away, Quest for the Jurassic Fart is almost certainly the goofiest stage show ever made by two identical 47-year-old medical professionals (a low bar, admittedly).
Be warned: it’s a fair bit more ‘fart’ than ‘Jurassic’. As it begins, the Van Tullekens have been invited to address the annual conference of an extremely prestigious scientific society whose exact name I can’t remember, but all you need to know is that their acronym is FARTERS. The duo conclude that their ideal presentation would be one based upon the Van Tulleken ‘family fart collection’: a series of preserved celebrity parps. But they feel it needs something a little extra: a dinosaur fart.
There is, to be fair, quite a lot of explanation of how the digestive system works and why it is that we (and all other animals) pass wind. There’s still not 80 minutes in this, mind, and the show features numerous diversions, from kiddie-friendly musings on the biological function of embarrassment to a video of maggots eating rotting human flesh to Chris shoving an endoscope up his nose. The siblings are not actors per se, but even by the not-especially-sober standards of the TV show, there’s a lot of goofing around here. The pair play up their assigned roles of dangerously relaxed (Chris) and terminally uptight (Xand) as they bicker their way to through an account of a caper-like adventure that involves defrauding a children’s charity, a live dinosaur and endless, endless farts.
For a show at the Royal Festival Hall, performed by two men who are really quite famous now, it’s a bit wobbly in places, with some flubbed video near the start and an, uh, ‘inexpensive’ dinosaur. A more cynical parent than I might conclude that farts and dinos were chosen as the headline attractions to maximise the show’s appeal with primary schoolers, when actually the Jurassic content is really quite light (though fart lovers are undoubtedly in for a treat).
Really, however, it’s an excuse to get Xand and Chris to tit around both educationally and amusingly on whatever they fancy. It’s very silly, but you’ll learn something, and the Van Tullekens are consummate showmen – maybe not what you want from your GP, but they can certainly hold a stage.