Interview: Festival Of The Spoken Nerd

Revenge of the nerds

Made up of Helen Arney, Matt Parker and Steve Mould, Festival Of The Spoken Nerd is in town for the Brighton Science Festival. Victoria Nangle probes a little deeper…

How are you today?
Matt: “Not bad, for halfway through the tour. We’re currently enjoying the Cambridgeshire countryside from our luxury wifi-enabled tour van, complete with AeroPress coffee maker and 230-volt transformer so we can power all our laptops from a single cigarette lighter. Technology FTW!”

Your show is called ‘Full Frontal Nerdity’, and it does say for ages over 15. Is this because it’ll just blow the mind of anyone who hasn’t finished GCSEs or are there rude bits?
Helen: “It’s a bit of both. We try to make our shows feel more like a rowdy comedy club than a cuddly, family-friendly theatre show. Kids get loads of chances to get their hands on science in school, or in all the extra-curricular stuff available to them. But there’s not much for adults who have left the classroom behind but still love to fill their heads with brain-boggling ideas or just go “ooh, fire!” at Steve’s flame tornado.”

Steve: “Science is too much fun just to leave it with the kids, that’s why we started Festival Of The Spoken Nerd. Where else can nerdy adults geek out without worrying that the show is corrupting young minds? At one point Matt suggests they try sexting in binary. That might explain why we have a minimum age recommendation.”
Matt: “Also the show contains some very graphic material. By which I mean actual graphs.”

“I’m more amazed how few are about my careful positioning of the element Arsenic”

What’s amazed you today?
Helen: “The number of comments I get about the Periodic Table dress I wear as part of the show. Although I’m more amazed how few are about my careful positioning of the element Arsenic.”

I know it’s an old question but I really am curious, what is the difference between a nerd and a geek?
Matt: “I think a nerd is defined by their oddly-specific but joyful enthusiasm for something that isn’t generally perceived as part of mainstream culture.”
Helen: “But a geek is all obsession and no social skills.”
Steve: “Although if you ask a geek that question, they’ll give you exactly the opposite answer…”

Last time you came to town there were lasers involved. What from this show might we expect to find in an old episode of ‘Star Trek’?
Helen: “We have several romantic gift suggestions for your future partner. By “future partner” I mean several thousand years into the future, because my gift suggestion is cryogenic freezing.”
Steve: “There will also be dangerous experiments with fire and electricity.”
Matt: “And smoke. Because we all know that there is a strong correlation between the two. Although, it’s not necessarily causal.”

Helen, I love your songs
– very good of you to give away an entire album over Christmas for charity. Can the guys sing? And if so, any chance of them being your backing band for a track?
Helen: “Unfortunately Matt and Steve can’t sing a note between them, but they have other skills that might be useful in creating the ultimate Nerd Band.”
Matt: “I am entirely a-musical, so I provide backing maths. Steve provides backing experiments and dubstep remixes, which is a rough approximation of music.”
Steve: “Because where there’s science there’s dubstep. That’s a causal link right there.”

What was the last thing that surprised you that you knew and the person you were talking to didn’t?
Matt: “I’m surprised at how many of our audience members don’t know that digital photos are spreadsheets. All digital images are spreadsheets of red, green and blue values which are then displayed in a grid. All digital monitors are spreadsheet displays, so if you’re reading this online, you’re actually just looking at a spreadsheet.”

What do you wish you knew?
Steve: “I wish I knew how to visualise things in four dimensions.”
Matt: “I wish I knew if we’re going to prove the twin-prime conjecture.”
Helen: “I wish I knew how to change the subject when these two get started…”

What do you hope will have been invented in 20 years time?
Matt: “Self-driving tour vans…”
Helen:”…powered by waste food scraps, like in Back To The Future.”
Steve: “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.”

And what do you hope to have seen the back of by the year 2034?
Steve: “Paper. But obviously not the paper that Latest 7 is printed on. That stuff’s fine.

Festival Of The Spoken Nerd – Full Frontal Nerdity, The Old Market, Saturday 22 February 2014, £15/13, 8pm, www.theoldmarket.com
Twitter: @FOTSN
www.festivalofthespokennerd.com
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