EVER wondered why your fingers go wrinkly in the bath? What explosions in space really look like? Or why beans make you fart? Well wonder no more.

Blue Peter resident whizz and master prober Greg Foot has made a living out of uncovering the mysteries of the universe and answering the ‘big’ questions.

Like any scientist worth his Bunsen burner, he prefers to let eyebrow-singeing experiments do the talking rather than bore his audience half to death with complicated formulas and theories.

A champion of the to-hell-with-health-and-safety approach, he will deploy his blow torch and panoply of ear-splitting gizmos in the confined space that is the Arts Centre to tackle the public’s burning questions in Caution: Safety Goggles Required later this month.

“I just find anything about the world interesting, like why do we produce tears when we cry?,” booms the 32-year-old. “I have hundreds of questions. You never run out of things to ask.

“Over the last couple of months I put out a call to the nation for their most curious questions and I will answer them in the show. We got so many great ones. Some of them are digging deep and some of them are a little bit bonkers. There were some classics like, why can’t we sneeze with our eyes open? Or how old is the universe? And what was the best thing before sliced bread? I’m still working on that one. We also had a great one: if a vampire bites a zombie, will the vampire turn into a zombie or the zombie turn into a vampire? All the most important questions,” he laughs. “I’ve chosen my favourite and we’ve prepared a bunch of exciting and often explosive answers.”

There is no length the BBC science presenter would not go to quench his thirst for knowledge – and the more nauseating the experiment the better. He recently made headlines for ‘eating his own leg’ in burger form, in a bid to find out what human flesh tastes like. Of course he did not go as far as chopping off a limb and, as chowing down on a human patty is illegal, he had a chunk of thigh tissue removed and analysed. He then worked off the smell and made a composite burger of similar flavours.

“I’ve always been very curious and I think no question is ever too silly,” he plays down his cannibalism. “But this particular one, we came up with in a development meeting,” he deadpans. “We were sitting around with cups of tea and biscuits and came up with that.” Long story short human flesh falls somewhere “between pork and lamb, with a smell similar to beef and ale stew.”

His indefatigable quest for answers - about everything from the solar system to real mind-bogglers like why we were blessed with pubic hair - started at the age of five with a fun kitchen experiment. Incidentally, this sparked a life-long obsession with “big flames.”

“My dad had stuck a drinking straw into custard powder,” recalls the resident Science Guy on Blue Peter and Sunday Brunch regular. “He blew the custard powder over the hob and it caught light and made a little flame thrower. I think every single child is naturally curious and therefore they are potentially scientists. They ask lots of questions. But when we get older we stop asking questions because we’re worried we don’t know the answer or that they’re too silly.

“With this show I want to inspire kids to keep asking questions about what makes the world tick and re-ignite that curiosity in adults.”

He went on to study natural sciences at Cambridge. In his spare time he performed fun science demonstrations and held workshops for children in museums. After graduation he tried out unsuccessfully for Blue Peter before opting to do a Masters in Science Media Production at Imperial College. Eventually the BBC took notice and, in 2007, he was offered his own children science programme Whizz Whizz Bang Bang.

His first nationwide theatre tour will be a far cry for the carefully rehearsed BBC series and bite-size TV segments. While the first half of the show will tackle those questions submitted by the nation with mind-blowing gimmicks, the second will see Greg put on the spot, with no encyclopaedias or Google to run to, as spectators test his knowledge.

“I’m terrified,” he admits. “The questions will be fired from this machine and I’ll catch them and answer them. But we have a plan. If I can’t answer I would like to see if the audience can. If we can’t answer it together then I promise to find out the answer on my way to the next show and probably tweet it. That’s the beauty of science, there are so many questions and we still can’t explain everything.”

Greg Foot will be at the Arts Centre on May 29. To book call 01793 524481 or go to swindontheatres.co.uk.