Latest News

A ship full of Helens and other news…

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I’ve just sent one of my infrequent newsletters (read it here) featuring such excellent events as “The Night That Launched A Thousand Ships” – my fundraiser full of science, stories, sea-faring and Helens on the Cutty Sark – and more live shows coming up soon.

You can also read the latest news about our Podcast of Unnecessary Detail, get a discount on Spoken Nerd DVD if you work in education, hear about my periodic table of puns and how I persuaded an actor to dress up as a motivational Zumba giraffe at the Natural History Museum and perform my “Evolution Disco” show last month.

Sign up for irregular but interesting news here.

Helen Scales, Helen Czerski, Helen McDonald, Helen Farr, Helen Pilcher and Natalie Haynes on the Cutty Sark this Sunday night
Janina Smith as a giraffe

Our new show is out on DVD, download and… floppy disk…?

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Yes, it’s finally here! You Can’t Polish A Nerd is now available to buy in multiple formats from the Spoken Nerd shop, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Microsoft Store, YouTube Movies, Xbox and Maths Gear.

Head here to get your copy!

We’re incredibly proud of how it’s turned out, after 18 months of throwing everything we’ve got at the production. And yes, we really have released the show across 227 limited edition floppy disks… you can still buy an individual 3.5 inch disk with a unique numbered 30 seconds of the show, a special presentation version of the DVD booklet, and an HD download of the show so you can actually watch it.  But you have to be quick – stocks are running low, and once all 227 are gone, they’re all gone!

I am become art!

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Or more accurately, my voice has been incorporated into an artwork by my friend and artist Yu-Chen Wang in collaboration with CERN.

I am sort of the voice of the bubble chamber… if you want to understand what I mean, you can go see it now in the Broken Symmetries exhibition at FACT in Liverpool. It’s touring later in 2019 to a host of other cities including Brussels and Barcelona.

Domestic Science on air tonight, Soho Theatre and US book launch in March

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Lots of news for February… Series 2 of our experimental (literally) Radio 4 show Domestic Science airs tonight at 11pm and for the next three Wednesdays, and we’re back at Soho Theatre for 7 nights in March. Also our fabulous book The Element In The Room is released in North America.

All that and more, like a Cambridge Science Festival of Did The Victorians Ruin The World? and lots of Evenings of Unnecessary Detail, in my email newsletter here. Sign up to get it in your inbox every month* on this link!

* Who am I kidding? It’ll be every other month at most.

More Soho Theatre shows, radio try-outs and discover badass physicist & inventor Hertha Ayrton

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New year, new news!

With seven nights at Soho Theatre in March, a new series of our Radio show, more from An Evening Of Unnecessary Detail and a Great Lives documentary about my current favourite physicist, inventor (and Marie Curie’s penpal) Hertha Ayrton… 2018 is looking busy already, so here’s a little summary of what’s in store.