Review for Festival of the Spoken Nerd: Full Frontal Nerdity

Introduction

Can science be funny? For a given value of funny... Scientists can be funny among themselves, as they can communicate and jest in a common language, but can they make science funny for the layperson? Back in college we’d have a bundle of laughs with liquid nitrogen and a couple of superconductors, and my average school chemistry lesson ended with a ‘put everything into one beaker and see what interesting shade of brown fizz we’ll get this time’. But in retrospect those pranks were less funny and more incredibly stupid. But, I managed to freeze a wart off without going to my GP.


Of course if the average person thinks about funny and science in the same sentence, it usually ends with The Big Bang Theory. Which isn’t science! Funny it may be, but it’s just another relationship sitcom, with the added seasoning of geek pop-culture references. The characters just happen to be scientists. But how many of us tune out when they actually talk science, whenever that rarely happens?

But Festival of the Spoken Nerd make comedy shows about science, and they’re for everyone. They recorded their Full Frontal Nerdity show back in January at the Bloomsbury Theatre, and it’s now coming out on DVD. Yes, I too am shocked at the prospect of a comedy DVD in July, not Christmas, but it’s because they had to fund it through Kickstarter; at the time of writing it’s available to order from their website at festivalofthespokennerd.com, and they got enough money pledged to fill the 2-disc collection with extras.


So join Geek Songstress Helen Arney, Experiments Maestro Steve Mould, and Stand-up Mathemetician Matt Parker as they talk about the definition of a nerd, wax lyrical about spreadsheets, electrocute a pickle, show us colours that don’t exist, shoot toroidal vortices at the audience, and much, much more.

Picture

The show is presented on the first dual layer disc in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, and most everything is clear and sharp throughout, coming through with sufficient detail. There are only a couple of niggles. A lot of imagery is projected during the show (probably Powerpoint with the occasional Overhead Projection), and during the colour sequences, some of the detail of the images doesn’t come across on DVD as it probably did live. The second niggle is a directorial one, cutting away too soon during the Toroidal Vortex climax.

Sound

The show gets a DD 2.0 English soundtrack. The all important dialogue is clear throughout. You also get a DD 2.0 American soundtrack (voiceover guy dubbing in Americanisms like ‘cell’ instead of ‘mobile’), and a DD 2.0 School Safe soundtrack with Received Pronunciation Guy dubbing in nice words instead of swears. Even with the swears it’s still rated 12. The show is subtitled in English, binary, Klingon, and Klingon to English translation, although the latter two subtitle tracks only last around five minutes into the show.

Extras

Both discs are presented in an Amaray case, with one disc on each inner face. You also get a 20-page booklet full of interesting snippets and useful info.

Disc 1 boots up to a static menu screen.

If you Play Safety Announcements, you get an Apple Mac style screen (very IT Crowd DVD menu), with typed announcements that I assume were projected ahead of the show. This reel lasts 2 minutes.


Pressing play also takes you through the conceit of loading the programme, with progress bar and anti-virus before the show itself starts.

Disc 1 has two audio commentaries. The Director’s Commentary features Steve Mould, Matt Parker and Helen Arney as they talk about the show, their comedy, as well as expounding on some of the science that they explore. There wasn’t enough space for them to say everything that they wanted to, so you also get a Director’s Commentary of the Director’s Commentary, where they add some more banter, as well as occasionally dip into the first commentary track to comment on that. Incidentally, given a certain Die Hard paraphrase, it doesn’t look as if these commentaries have been BBFC’d.

Disc 2 also boots up to a static menu.

Backstage Nerdity lasts 20:23, and takes us on a light-hearted look behind the scenes of the show, with interviews with the three sci-comics.

The Mould Effect Effect is a mockumentary on the effect of the eponymous effect on society at large. This lasts 8:36.


Smoke Ring Smackdown is a Blue Peter-esque guide to building your own toroidal vortex generator with a toilet roll and some sticky-back aluminium. This lasts 18:06.

For 8:40, Helen, Matt and Steve go through some of the more entertaining Tweets they received on the various shows of their tour.

Helen Smashes It lasts 6:35 and in it, Helen Arney offers a guide on how to smash things with your voice.

Steve Gets in a Pickle lasts 8:05, and in it Steve Mould explains the multi-colour fire tornado that we briefly see at the end of the show, and he then goes on to electrocute some more pickles, this time pickled in salts other than domestic sodium chloride to see what colours they detonate at. The words “Don’t try this at home” are quite rightly used on repeated occasion here, but the glee with which Steve plays with mains electricity is evidence of someone who has played with liquid nitrogen and superconductors!


Matt Spreadsheets Himself lasts 9:52, and in it the mathematician goes into more detail on how you too can make an image spreadsheet. Somewhere around six minutes in, my face went numb. Yeah, not a mathematician here...

Finally there are three music videos; you get the full animated version of Helen’s Cryonic Love Song running to 3:19, 24 seconds worth of Dubstep Beads, and Dubstep G-G-G-Game of Liiiiiiiife running to 0:25. Is it just me, or is dubstep dance music for people who are getting on a bit? Y’know, people who can’t handle the full b.p.m. of drum and bass or jungle?

Conclusion

Okay, maybe Festival of the Spoken Nerd isn’t for everyone. This is a show that you have to engage with, so it’s best suited for the layperson with a passing interest in science, the kind of person who in a previous generation would have watched Tomorrow’s World on a Thursday night. Of course if you have an even greater interest in Maths and Science, then you’ll get even more out of the show. The most important question, “Can science be funny?” is answered with a resounding yes here.


The comedy is three-fold. The performing scientists, Helen Arney, Matt Parker and Steve Mould are entertaining and engaging in their own rights. They have funny bones and the all important gift of timing. The second aspect is the banter between them. It’s a three-header, songs, experiments and spreadsheets, and at the head of the show, heckles are invited, as long as they are backed up with peer references and footnotes. In other words they know that the ideas and concepts in the show will probably be heard by the audience for the first time. So the three heckle each other, probably scripted to be sure, but it does the job of drawing the audience in, making them feel like part of the show (as well as the odd moment of participation), rather than just watching it from afar.


The third, and most important thing, is that they do make the science funny. Electron transitions, resonant frequencies, fluid dynamics, spreadsheets, binary, synaesthesia, cryogenics, optics, the very nature of reality itself, and the infamous Mould Effect are not only explained in accessible and understandable ways, but it’s laugh out loud funny too.


I love this release, it’s the kind of comedy that I’ve always wanted to see, although I never realised until now that I had that intellectual itch that needed scratching. Hopefully this will be the first in a long line of similar DVD releases from The Festival of the Spoken Nerd. At the time of writing, the DVD is available for pre-order only through the Festival of the Spoken Nerd website, and on the day of release it will be available to buy on download as well. And from this September, Festival of the Spoken Nerd are touring again in the UK, with their new show, Just For Graphs, and again, details on their website. You should buy this DVD to get an idea of what to look forward to.