Bubbleology: Bubble blowing craze hits London

From this perch atop a ladder he works his magic, sending huge undulating bubbles into the sky. As they wobble into the night, the glassy, oil-slick clouds glint blue, orange, purple, gold and green and then vanish. Like fascinated children, the masses below are transfixed.

Sam Heath, aka SamSam Bubbleman, the London-based bubbleologist, can do just about anything with a bit of soapy water, two sticks and a length of rope. Over the weekend he was wowing crowds at the Big Chill in Herefordshire, later this month he will be at the Green Man festival and in September he performs at the Thames Festival.

With his bubble-blowing shows and recent record-breaking attempts in Finsbury Park he has created, well, a veritable bubble of bubbling in London.

"There has been huge interest in us recently," says Heath, who runs an entire bubble company, Bubble Inc, through which performers can be booked and bubbling equipment can be bought. "We have just had to employ our first full-time member of staff at Bubble HQ."

It seems no coincidence that since Antony Gormley's One & Other began in Trafalgar Square in July, three separate participants have blown bubbles atop the fourth plinth. One hula-hooped while firing a bubble gun, one relaxed on a chair with a bubble wand, and another took two bubble machines up with her. And the well-heeled are loving bubbles, too.

Sam has performed personally for stars such as Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel and Chris Evans and his company has provided bubble entertainment for Jarvis Cocker, KT Tunstall, Zoë Ball and Will Young. He has just signed to perform for a mystery authoress "who is extremely famous" but who, sadly, didn't want to be named.

For Sam, bubble-blowing is both an art and a science — he is quite serious about his study of "bubbleology". But what exactly is a bubble, I wondered? "A soap bubble is actually mostly water that has been made stretchy," says Heath. "The soap lowers the surface tension of the water and makes it elastic." He talks enthusiastically about how you can tell, to a millionth of an inch, the thickness — and therefore when it will burst — of a bubble by studying its colour.

Purple and green are the thickest and most durable, clear are the most delicate. "They are a simple thing," says Sam, "but everyone loves them."

It's certainly true in Camden. Head to the High Street any weekend and there are bubble blowers puffing out clouds of soapy circles all along the road. The juggling and toy shop Oddballs, just by Camden Lock, has even sold out of its giant bubble wands and bubble-making books in the rush.

On the other side of London, the more commercial bubblers (and, of course, the children) have been scrambling to buy up the bubble toys sold at Hamleys. A spokesperson for the store said: "Our Pink Bubble Gun and Billion Bubble Wand are extremely popular — in the past year alone we have seen a 30 per cent increase in sales."

For many of us, the most we've ever accomplished with a bubble is destroying it, but for Sam, who can freeze bubbles, make square bubbles and edible bubbles, put people inside bubbles and set bubbles on fire, popping them is just plain dull. "Generally the most popular thing to do with a bubble is to burst it," he says, "but I think that is actually the most boring thing you can do."

Children are the main culprits. "They are the biggest cause of bubble death," he says. It's one reason why, while he does entertain children as a small part of his job, he likes to think of his work as more of an art form — appropriate for all ages. In fact, he recently created a bubble installation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern.

Yet even as adults, bubbles don't need to be sophisticated to entertain us. At The Brickhouse Restaurant and Supper Club in Brick Lane — a food, entertainment and themed-party venue that is host to the trendy east London crowd — owner Nick Cave recently began charming his guests by turning on his old bubble machine during parties.

"I hadn't used the bubble machine in London for a while because I thought it wasn't very cool," says Cave, "but I started turning it on in the bar when I was drunk and the crowd actually think it's really funny and cute." On Saturday, the entertainers at The Brickhouse's ShockShock alien-themed, electro-pop night will be churning out bubbles all night long.

At the moment it seems that London — just like West Ham United FC — is Forever Blowing Bubbles.