Festival of the Spoken Nerd: Full Frontal Nerdity

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This bills itself as physics porn for the sci-curious, but does not have the stamina to deliver. After an hour of limp jokes, spreadsheets and fires set in wastepaper bins, the computer loving clan have given the audience nothing – apart from a safe place for geeks to hang out on a Saturday night.

It’s a real shame that Festival of the Spoken Nerd haven’t seen fit to take their show past the mundane, as the sci-comedy market is one with limitless potential. But the experiments are so lacklustre: there is nothing extraordinary or impressive, even, in their work, and their Google ‘n’ eBay approach to tests come over as cheap and basic. Science on a stage should induce a plentiful supply of oohs and aahs, but there are none here – aside from the flat ones produced by the trio’s songstress Helen Arney. Again, the songs fail to either educate or entertain, begging the question as to what this show is actually here to do. Standup mathematician Matt Parker might be a spreadsheet whizz but is clueless when it comes to constructing jokes, and while Stephen Mould is the most endearing of the three, his stale experiments do little to change the overall impression of banality.

For trying to carve out a different corner of the comedy market, Festival of the Spoken Nerd should be applauded. But their next offering needs to be bigger, and better, because fires in bins are not the preserve of either science or comedy greats.