This week Her Campus had the fantastic opportunity to catch up with Helen Arney, one part of the trio that makes up The Festival of The Spoken Nerd. Described as geeky songstress, Helen adds some fun to your boring science lesson by mixing witty scientific knowledge with that of a ukulele. In fact, some have said she has “the voice of an angle”. No that wasn’t a typo. For all of you that didn’t already know, Helen, alongside stand-up comedians Matt Parker and Steve Mould are leaving the confines of London and the Edinburgh Fringe and venturing into deepest, darkest Exeter on Tuesday 28th January to present their Full Frontal Nerdity Tour. Once again, not a typo- although in a recent TED talk, Arney did say she was inspired to co-join comedy and science by a burlesque dancer, so who knows? This is a show that is not to be missed and will certainly add some much needed hilarity to the standard “Cheesy Tuesday” that is on offer at Arena. In fact, you should use the show to ask the three nerds, just how the potency of our favourite haunt comes around? Surely it can’t be just the incredible tunes of S Club 7?
As Helen notes, this is a show for “nerds and non-nerds alike…it features three best friends who all try to outdo each other by making bigger science torpedoes than one another” For an inkling of what to expect from the geeky songstress, check out Helen’s song “You and Me and Walt Disney” which is all about cryogenic freezing:
Fun right? Her Campus certainly thinks so. Physicists take note! When I asked Helen what inspired her to write songs of this kind she said: “the good thing about doing comedy about science is that pretty much everything is about science.” The trio source their inspiration from things they have seen on the Internet to general queries about the universe that they are intrigued about. In fact a recent skit in their show is about trying to work out the science behind this:
“Steve got the idea from a video he saw on Youtube that used plastic beads and wanted to find out how it worked and if he could make it bigger and better”. In the show the nerds take their investigation to the audience and after one of the shows someone even submitted a research paper on the nature of the physics behind it: “Our show has now officially been peer reviewed!” Want marks for originality? Head to the show and you will be getting a first in no time!
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“Growing up I was a massive fan of Monty Python- and when I think about my influences, I can’t help returning to them because they combine intellectual ideas with silly knockabout comedy which to me is such a satisfying combination.” For Arney this is why science and comedy work so well together: “Both scientists and comedians look at the world differently and try to find connections between things that no-else has made. I think wonder and laughter are closely linked. Both make you go ‘ooh my brain has never made that connection before.” Helen also compared the laws of comedy to the laws of physics-for more of that watch this!
This is an ethos that is shared by Helen’s co-stars Matt Parker and Steve Mould who met a few years ago whilst they were performing separately at the Edinburgh Fringe. After seeing their shows, audience members kept encouraging each of them to meet up and the rest is history…
“It wasn’t until someone else pointed it out to us that we realised that we all thought about science and comedy in a similar way. And when someone said we should put a show together- we thought why not?” Since then they have not looked back with sold out shows night after night. One science sceptic even commented: “I didn’t know what a nerd was before I came to the show and now I want to be one!” highlighting just how fun and light-hearted the show really is. What was so refreshing about talking to Helen was how interested herself and the rest of the Spoken Nerd Team appeared to be with their audiences. After each show there is a chance to meet the comedians and this is something that they really enjoy with Helen commenting: “other performers might not want to be intellectually challenged but we do, we think it is great and any heckling will require citations!”
As it came to the end of our chat, Helen divulged to me one of moments on the tour to look forward to which involves attempting to smash a glass with the power her voice. We have all seen it in cartoons, but who knew it was possible in real life? Without giving too much away, it is possible- in fact out of 24 performances at the Fringe, Arney managed to do it 18 times! Of the seven times she was unsuccessful, 4 resulted in breaking the glass with a hammer- something she said “is surprisingly difficult!” A word of advice from the songstress: “It is actually cleaner to smash a glass with your voice than a hammer” just in case any of you were wondering.
To round off the interview we asked Helen for her favourite inspired maths and science puns and she came up with some hilarious ones. Our favourite closely followed by “the voice of an angle” was “if you like that pun, the show will give you a large hadron (we hope we spelt that correctly”. On that note, if you want an evening of guaranteed nerdity, make sure you buy your tickets now!
To find out more check out The Festival of the Spoken Nerds check out their website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Photo Credits: Idil Sukan and www.helenarney.com
Source Credits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuT-rCgOuw8, http://festivalofthespokennerd.com/
Video Credits: Youtube.