Uncategorized – Page 13

20 November, 201520 May, 2025

When I Was One, I Was Just Begun

During the chaos of being on tour I was asked to write a few lines about how the science communication scene had grown during the last 18 months. It left me pleasantly surprised.

In February 2014, Birmingham held it’s first Science Showoff and now has an established regular Bright Club too. These brought local performers and researchers together with not just the public but also practitioners from around the country. It’s been especially nice to see people come to one show, see how it works and sign up as a performer for the next one. It was wonderful to receive an email asking me whether there were any other outlets for performing science stand-up as they had ‘got the bug’.

1 June, 201520 May, 2025

On Tour

Not quite the Rolling Stones, but I’m excited to be taking both Half Baked Heroes and Subliming the Ridiculous shows on tour this year. I’ll be at the Cardiff Science Festival and the Lancashire Science festival. The latter almost feels like a residency as I’m performing over three days. You have no excuse to miss this one.

Aside from new things, I’ve been revisiting old favourites. When I first started along the path that has led me here it was because I delivered an outreach session at Aston University. It was a workshop on EEG, which was a variation on a practical I taught on the psychology undergraduate programme. That element later became a favourite in an early variation of the Fifty Shades of Grey Matter session I developed on the history of electrophysiology and neuroscience. While it remained in the full version of that workshop, the EEG practical got cropped in versions I did for the NeuroCafe as part of the Flatpack Film festival in 2014.

17 March, 201520 May, 2025

Subliming the Ridiculous

This year holds a special treat for me, an excuse to get historical with my science. 2015 is the 350th anniversary of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the longest running, dedicated science journal. My contribution to the celebrations is a new show, ‘Subliming the Ridiculous’.

In a flashback to 1665 the show focusses on the transition from alchemy to chemistry. As well as highlighting the good discoveries made in a period when few had a knowledge of science ,we peel back the veil of alchemy and the belief in the classical elements of earth, air, fire and water of the ancient Greek. Each element is disproved by a series of demonstrations and the characters who revealed the new knowledge.