Very Heath Robinson

Adam Hart-Davis is the irrepressibly enthusiastic presenter who romps across our television screens bringing excitement to all manner of scientific and technical subjects. Instantly recognizable in his bright and eccentric clothes, he has enlightened his viewers on all manner of topics from the development of nuclear fusion to boiling the perfect egg. He made his name presenting shows such as What the Romans Did for Us and Local Heroes and has a long list of books to his credit, from serious titles like The Cosmos: A Beginner's Guide and Engineers through to the light-hearted Stringlopedia and Taking the Piss: A Potted History. After attending Eton College, he read chemistry at Merton College, Oxford and did a PhD in organometallic chemistry at the University of York and three years of post-doctoral research at the University of Alberta in Canada. He spent the next five years working at Oxford University Press, where he edited scientific texts and chess manuals. In 1977 he began his career in broadcasting, working for 17 years at Yorkshire Television, first as a researcher and subsequently as producer of series such as Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers and the school show Scientific Eye. In the 1990s he presented two series for Yorkshire Television, Local Heroes and On the Edge. Local Heroes proved immensely popular and was moved to BBC2. As well as the Romans, he did programmes on what the Victorians did for us, not to mention the Ancients, the Tudors and the Stuarts. He has collected fourteen honorary doctorates in addition to numerous awards for his services to engineering. He discovered while making a television programme that he is a distant cousin of the Queen, David Cameron and John Julius Norwich.