Anatomy Lab Live: Review of Solihull show where fine dining and autopsies are on menu – Birmingham Mail

Solihull has played host to a new dinner show with real heart... and lungs, brains and intestines.

Because diners at the Village Hotel were offered an extra course with their meal - live dissection.

Welcome to Anatomy Lab Live, the brainchild of teacher Sam Piri, who was inspired to create this evenings infotainment after watching the delight of schoolchildren studying biology.

The event begins with a good dinner of salmon, served with roast potatoes, green beans and roasted butternut squash and carrots, followed by apple pie and custard or Eton mess - washed down with wine or lager.

The only clue of what is to come is an unsettling table centre piece, made up of medical waste sacks, syringes, and petri dishes.

After the food has been cleared away, a curtain is drawn back to reveal an operating theatre, complete with a body lying on a trolley, feet poking out from under a white sheet.

Dressed in full scrubs, pathologist Sam peels back the blanket and reaches carefully into the gaping chest.

There is a gasp from the audience as he pulls out the heart and lungs, holding them high for everyone to see, before setting them down on a stainless-steel table.

Former forensic science student Kellie Bown at the next table to me, is clearly enjoying herself. Its like the most macabre dinner party ever, she says.

Thankfully all is not quite as it seems - the body on the operating table is plastic, the insides pig organs, chosen because they are almost identical to humans.

The operating theatre is a decommissioned pathology laboratory from a Sheffield hospital, rebuilt inside the banqueting room at the Village Hotel in Solihull.

This is only the opening night in Birmingham, but the show is proving offally popular with tickets for Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle and Blackpool performances already sold out.

Sam dissects the brain, heart and lungs for the audience to see how they work. He explains the left lung is smaller than the right to make space for the heart and demonstrates by feeding a plastic tube into the lungs, then putting the other end to his pursed lips and blowing them up like a ballon.

He even brings the organs round to each table so we can get a closer look.

If things start getting a bit too much for people, they are free to walk out, get some fresh air and compose themselves, then come back in, he says.

The brains look like blotches of blancmange spilt on the tabletop and smell like the bin in a butchers shop. Suddenly Im glad we werent served pork for dinner.

I take a deep breath and lean in for a closer look but Kellie keeps her distance, covering her mouth and nose as her face turns the same shade of pale pinks as the pig brains.

I wasnt expecting to get so close, she admits. I dont mind looking at them, its the smell I cant stand. I dont eat meat!

Not everyone is so squeamish. During the mid-show interval 100 diners don rubber gloves to poke and prod the organs, even picking them up to pose for photographs.

Eve Hubbleday is here to indulge her fascination with anatomy and rummages around inside the body as if she was digging through the discount bin at the Next sale.

The 32 year-old, from Birmingham, says: Ive always been interested in the human body, but this is the first time Ive seen anything like this. The chance to get hands on was too good to miss.

Her fianc Tom Ruthven, 30, is president of Coventry University Occupational Therapy Society and is one of many students in the audience.

This is a great chance to see the inner workings of the human body after learning all the theory during our lectures, he says. Its is a lot more interactive than the stuff we do in the classroom.

Fellow society member Beth Waudby, 20, adds: And a lot more fun. Im really enjoying it.

The second half starts with Sam pulling out the stomach and intestines, which resemble a deep sea monster and smell equally foul.

Sam points to the gallbladder, the luminous bile inside glowing green. It looks like a dinosaur egg, thats the only way I can describe it, he says.

Then comes the pancreas which feels a bit like a bunch of grapes.

The intestines and other organs are bought from slaughter houses that kill 3,500 pigs each day to meet demand for pork, sausages and bacon.

Sams company Vivit Apparatus which is Latin for Living Machine has a special licence from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) to put on these shows.

His team also use the organs and hand-drawn diagrams to explain how diseases like meningitis and strokes effect the body.

Sam says: With the NHS in crisis under unprecedented pressure, we want to educate people so they understand and can take ownership for their own health.

They even amputate a leg using an enormous pork thigh between the plastic torso and knee.

Medical student Alice Gwyn-Jones, 23, spends several minutes cutting through the flesh and bone with a giant hacksaw before Sam delicate carves it to show the audience the bone and artery.

Alice says: If this was a live patient, you would need to clamp the artery first to stop blood spurting everywhere.

At the end of the evening the discarded organs are tipped into the heavy duty yellow sacks labelled, Clinical waste for incineration only, to dispose of them safely.

Sams dad Kevin, the companys chief operating officer, says: Thats the worst part of the job, the smell is unbelievable. In summer its so bad we have to tape the bin lid shut.

With that I make my way home, taking time to digest everything I have learned before deciding Ill probably pass on those sausages I was intending to have for breakfast tomorrow.

*There are still a few tickets left for Anatomy Lab Live in London, Leeds, Plymouth, Exeter, and Cornwall at http://www.anatomylablive.co.uk.

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Anatomy Lab Live: Review of Solihull show where fine dining and autopsies are on menu - Birmingham Mail