Latest News

Did The Victorians Ruin The World? On Radio 4 all this week…

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It’s finally here! The radio series I wrote with my sister, Dr Kat Arney, about whether the Victorians were really that ingenious, is out on BBC Radio 4 all this week. Collect all five episodes, from Squirrels and Cars to Beards, Darwinism and Water Flushing Toilets.

Links to hear each episode live – and listen again for 28 days after – are in my latest newsletter.

Along with details about our new Festival of the Spoken Nerd DVD recording at The Albany Theatre in Deptford – Just For Graphs – on 6th and 8th May.

Buy tickets for the recordings – and pre-order the DVD and download – now!

 

CREDIT: Kitty Walker

CREDIT: Kitty Walker

 

 

 

 

News news news! QI, Soho Theatre and new “Elements” song

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cover2It’s been a busy few months… too busy to update this page, so here’s a link to my latest newsletter.

Highlights include our BBC Two debut as Festival of the Spoken Nerd, in the new series of QI – bringing three electrifying experiments to try out on the panel.

Also our ten-night run at the Soho Theatre starts in just under a month and runs from 11th to 21st January, with the best of Festival of the Spoken Nerd’s last two tours. Plus a very special concert for families that I’m hosting for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

And online I’ve re-recorded Tom Lehrer’s “Elements” with the 16 elements he didn’t know about when he wrote the song in 1959. They even rhyme!

Read it all here.

 

I Solve London’s Problems (for Time Out)

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London ProblemsHere’s me in a recent issue of Time Out London, solving problems for my fellow capital city-dwellers using a dash of science.

You can hear more problems being solved by me, Matt and Steve in “Domestic Science”, our new Radio 4 comedy show! Broadcasts start next Wednesday 20th July and all the details are here.

Tune in live at 11.15pm or listen & download afterwards. It’s a treat for your ears, and you might (possibly) learn something too.

Radio 4 Recordings and Festival Appearances – this summer!

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Green DomsciWe (that is Matt, Steve and me as Festival of the Spoken Nerd) are recording our first comedy series for BBC Radio 4 next month: “Domestic Science”.

Cue excitement! And sound effects!

The recordings are 10th and 20th May, with an afternoon read-through for a very select audience on Friday 6th May at 3pm. If you can join us at any of those we would love to see some friendly faces there. Tickets for the 6th are available now, but you need to follow our twitter feed and Facebook events to get tickets for the actual 10th May and 20th May recordings.

The shows will be broadcast some time in July on BBC Radio 4, and downloadable from the BBC Radio Player for 28 days afterwards. I’m told you can listen to the Radio Player from anywhere in the world, so no excuse not to tune in once they’ve been broadcast in the UK!

If you’d rather see me doing something live, I’ve got a heap of festival appearances coming up: Udderbelly Festival on the South Bank, Imperial Festival, Devizes Festival, Cheltenham Science Festival, Oxfordshire Science Festival, Nine Worlds Convention, Solarsphere Music & Astronomy Festival and the new Blue Dot Festival at Jodrell Bank Observatory. All tickets and info here.

You wait ages for a TV broadcast date, and then three come along at once…

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Quick news update for April, with three things on your tellybox that I’m appearing in soon:

OUTRAGEOUS ACTS OF SCIENCE – the new series has already gone out in the US, but UK viewers can watch it on WEDNESDAY NIGHTS AT 8pm on Discovery UK. There’s plenty of new clips to watch here in the meantime, including the punniest collection of science presenters on the planet.

EUREKA! THE BIG BANG QUERY – if you’re in Ireland (or can somehow magically get RTE channels wherever you are) you can see me on two episodes of Eire’s best new / only new science-themed panel show. You can see me doing a very special version of The Elements on MONDAY 24th APRIL around 10.30pm, with Neil Delamere in the hotseat, and comedians PJ Gallagher and Susan Calman. If you’re not in the right part of the world, you can still see Neil making a ninny of himself in a wind tunnel here – for science, of course…

THE IT CROWD MANUAL – and for everyone who loved The IT Crowd as much as Roy loved an obscure nerdy t-shirt, I’m briefly in this tribute to the programme. It aired a few years ago, but now you can watch it (and all the episodes too) on the Channel4 website ANY TIME YOU LIKE.

The new – and now complete! – Elements song on Channel 4 News

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ElementsIn case you missed it (you would only have had to blink a few times) here’s my *new* *updated* version of Tom Lehrer’s “Elements” as seen on Channel 4 News last night. I’m still waiting for the IUPAC to actually name elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 before I can truly finish the song, but let’s call this New Version 1.0 for now.

In other news, I helped the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture smash a glass on TV (yet again) but have no fear if you missed it, you can see the lectures here with the glass-smash around 42 minutes, or watch my live stage version from “Full Frontal Nerdity” where I sing my little heart out here.

Also there’s an epic sale on at the Festival of the Spoken Nerd shop right now… everything is in multiples of pi pounds, from t-shirts to totes and tea towels, so you can pick up a bargain from just £3.14 if you are quick…