It's the End of the World (But Not As We Know It)

It's the End of the World (But Not As We Know It) comes to The Forum on Tuesday 16 February, part of the Norwich Science Festival 2027. It's a talk that spends an hour looking at apocalyptic fiction—the books, films and stories that imagine the world coming to an end—and why we're so drawn to them in the first place.

Apocalyptic fiction is a broad church. It covers everything from the slow, quiet decay of a post-civilisation landscape to the sudden, loud arrival of a global catastrophe. The talk works its way through that territory, exploring the different ways writers and filmmakers have imagined the end of things and the strange, compelling reasons why we keep coming back to those scenarios. It's as much about what these stories say about the present as it is about the imagined future.

The session sits within the popular science programme of the Norwich Science Festival, and it's aimed at adults. That means it's not a children's workshop or a family-friendly science demo; it's a proper talk for an older crowd, so you'll be in a room with people there for the same thing. If you've spent any time reading through the end-of-the-world stuff—whether it's the classics or the more recent takes—it'll be a good place to see how it all fits together.

It runs from 7pm to 8pm at The Forum, so it's a single hour in the city centre on a Tuesday night. You can find it listed alongside the rest of the festival's line-up at norwichsciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on.