A Sussex University lecturer is putting Hollywood stunts to the test to see whether they could happen in real life.

In Hollywood Science, a new BBC television series, Dr Hare and Red Dwarf actor Robert Llewellyn took on the role of cheeky schoolboys staging back garden experiments with Action Men and toy buses.

Dr Hare, 34, who lives in Brighton, said: "I have always been interested in experiments ever since I was a schoolboy growing up in Worthing.

"I had problems with my writing and spelling but I learnt quickly through diagrams and machines. I just enjoy making science more creative and fun."

"The TV series is very funny as we are shown as two geeky blokes doing mad experiments in the garden. There were no rehearsals and we made some startling discoveries."

In true schoolboy fashion he constructed a "bus-a-pult" to see if the runaway bus crammed with passengers in action film Speed could really have jumped that gap.

Dr Hare said: "Using a toy bus we discover Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves would have been history. The bus would have blown up with all of the passengers on board."

"Whether you use a toy bus or a life-size one it would take the same flight across the gap. The bus needed to take off from an angle as motorcycle stuntman Evil Knievel used to do.

"The bus in Speed takes off from a flat surface and then mysteriously takes on an angle but not the right one."

Similarly, when the duo scrutinised the stunts in Die Hard, they uncovered the truth about certain stunts in Hollywood multi-million dollar movies.

On-screen actor Bruce Willis leaps from the top floor of a tall tower to escape from evil terrorists.

The quick-thinking action hero ties a fire hose around his waist, jumps 50ft and is able to crash through a glass window below. Yet Dr Hare was not convinced and set about testing this scene using an Action Man.

He said: "It was clear that Bruce Willis would probably have been cut in half by the hose pipe rather than swing through a glass window. As he picked up speed, he would suddenly be stopped short by the pipe and all of the energy would go across his waist.

"He would have been in no fit state to fight off a set of international terrorists. He would have been better off doing a bungee jump."

However a scene in Dante's Peak, starring Pierce Brosnan, was revealed to be true to life. By using a toy boat floating on a lake of acid, Dr Hare re-enacted the tense moment when the volcano is erupting and the lava flow is blocking the volcanologist's escape.

He heads off across a lake which has been turned to acid by the volcanic activity and the aluminium boat he is in starts to dissolve. Dr Hare proved this would really happen although in the film they do escape at the last minute in true Hollywood style.

Dr Hare and his co-presenter even constructed a cage with metal bars in their shed in a similar vein to a scene in Shanghai Moon. While Jackie Chan used a wet shirt to bend back prison bars, Dr Hare proved that wet cotton could be ten to 20 per cent stronger than dry fabric. So the unbelievable stunts of cult figure Jackie Chan were proved to be possible.

Dr Hare, who set up the Creative Science Centre at Sussex University in 1995, said: "Such movies may have a lot of expert consultants but they do not get everything right. We may just let them off though as it is Hollywood after all."

At the end of each ten-minute programme Dr Hare and Robert Llewellyn give the film special effects a plausibility rating based on their own findings.

Hollywood Science, produced by the Open University for the BBC Learning Zone, will be shown weekly on Fridays until June 22.