Exclusive interview with Professor Brian Cox

“Not many planets have civilisation... and beer!”

Professor Brian Cox OBE, FRS, is widely recognised as the foremost communicator for all things scientific, having presented a number of highly acclaimed science programmes for the BBC, boosting the popularity of subjects such as astronomy and physics and receiving a host of accolades.

His television programmes include ‘21st Century Space Race’, ‘Forces of Nature’, ‘Human Universe’, ‘Wonders of Life’ and ‘Wonders of the Universe’ as well as cohosting (with comedian Dara O’Briain) the popular annual astronomy and cosmology series ‘Stargazing Live’. He has also presented critically acclaimed documentaries for the BBC Horizon series.

As well as his successful television career, Brian has also sold over a million books worldwide and embarked on a successful UK theatre and arena tour seen by over 150,000 people, including a sell-out 9000 seat show at Wembley Arena in London, for which he holds the Guinness World Record for the largest science show ever performed.

It might surprise you to learn that the Oldham-born physicist began his career in the music industry as keyboard player with rock band Dare and later with chart-toppers D:Ream, best known for their number one hit ‘Things Can Only Get Better’.

Proving he can turn his hand to just about anything, Brian has now launched his very own Cosmic Brew!

Style caught up with Brian to discuss space travel, life on Earth, football and beer...!

Style: Why did you decide to launch your own beer? Brian: Growing up in Oldham, walking distance from the brewery, JW Lees is a name I’ve always known – and their beers are legendary! So, to work with them, to experiment with different beers, to uncover the secrets and science of brewing and launch Cosmic Brew has been a great experience. And it was great to launch it at the Horton Arms, in Chadderton, where I first enjoyed a beer in my teenage years. I also wanted to put something back into Oldham – to collaborate with a successful local industry to make something worthwhile. I’ve never done anything like this before, but when Michael asked me to collaborate on a beer, I couldn’t resist. It feels right.

What’s the idea behind the label design? The pattern of the stars on the label is the view of the night sky looking North over the brewery on the day I

was born; March 3rd, 1968. It’s what I would have seen had I looked out of the window. There’s a fact for the pub quiz!

If you could share a pint with anybody, dead or alive, who would it be? I always wanted to meet David Bowie actually, but also Einstein would’ve been interesting! And alive, I’d like to meet Bob Dylan.

Do you still follow Oldham Athletic? Yeah, I used to have a season ticket and we used to go the games, then go back to The Horton Arms when I was 17+. Those were the glory days of Oldham being founding members of the Premier League, with Joe Royle managing and the Wembley semi finals.

What do you have coming up? I’m just finishing a thing for the BBC called Planets which will be on next April, but also I’m getting ready for my live shows next year, so I’ll be at Manchester Arena next February - it’s nearly sold out but we can open it up for even more.

Who inspires you? In science, it was the Apollo program and I was just fascinated by the moon landings. Also a movie by Carl Sagan called Cosmos in the 1980’s which was probably the best science documentary ever made.

Will you be going to see the new First Man movie? I can’t wait to see it. I’ve actually got quite friendly with a few of them, and Buzz Aldrin in particular, so that will be interesting to see.

It was NASA’s 60th birthday this year, what do you see happening in the next sixty years? I think we’ll be on Mars within the next twenty years and I think it will be a collaboration as I don’t think SpaceX or NASA can do it on their own. The thing about SpaceX and other companies like Blue Origin is they’ve worked out how to use reusable rockets and reusable rockets have been the barrier to repeatable space flight. I met Jeff Bezos once and he said, “Imagine you fly from London to New York and get off the plane and blow it up, imagine how expensive that would be”. Now we know how to reuse them, there is a chance for us try it. And I’m sure there will be space flight/space tourism in the next ten/ fifteen years but I’m also sure Virgin Galactic will be doing it in five years.

You recently appeared on screen alongside Sir David Attenborough discussing the life and work of Charles Darwin. Would you like to work with him more? Yes! David invented television science documentaries, which everyone tends to forget about. And also then ran BBC2 for a while and I think he commissioned Monty Python so he’s got a track record that will never be matched.

What is your favourite planet? The correct answer is this one. Jeff Bezos said that the one thing we’ve learnt from space exploration is that this is the best planet. Beyond Earth, we can just about live on Mars; it has water below the surface and it’s got everything we need to live on it. Beyond this solar system, it’s another story... we’ve discovered another 3,000 planets, so we do think there are other earth-like planets with a nice atmosphere and oceans.

Is there life out there? The reason I would guess yes, is that life began on earth very soon after it’s formation, so it only took 100 million years at most which is not a long time to produce life, which suggests there is a sense of inevitability.

Do you think we’ll discover it in our lifetime? Yeah, well the next lander that is going to Mars is a European lander, which is built to look for life, so we are confident enough it might be there that we are going to look. If we do find anything they’ll be single cell organisms, not civilisations, as the probability that another planet began life before Earth is extremely small; which is why I go back to your previous question as to what is my favourite planet - it’s Earth, as not many planets have civilisation... and beer!

Ruth Parkinson

TOGETHER, JW LEES AND PROFESSOR BRIAN COX ARE ON A MISSION, TO EXPLORE NEW WORLDS, TO SEEK OUT NEW IDEAS AND NEW FLAVOURS. IT IS THIS THRUST OF CURIOUSITY THAT HAS LED TO COSMIC BREW: A HAPPY AND THIRST-QUENCHING ALE. GRAB A BEER AND ENJOY! AVAILABLE FROM JANUARY 2019.