The Festival of the Spoken Nerd Friday June 10 at the Corn Exchange

We cover a lot of bases, Devizes Arts Festival, when it comes to events. From the shady Fringe to classical piano, from comedy to archaeology; we’ve ticked a lot of boxes in our time. There isn’t a box for The Spoken Nerd. Friday’s event at the Corn Exchange was simply the most innovative act that has ever been hosted by the Festival.

Take a physicist, a mathematician and a scientist, add a ukulele and a pickle, a spectrum and some wit, set fire to something and stand well back. The Nerds are Helen, Matt and Steve ‘the Mould Effect’; three young scientists who incorporate social media into their visually exciting show. They actually want you to keep your phones on.

Lights, camera, numbers, fast-paced action; there are graphs and flashes and parabolic arcs, jokes about binary coding and fifty shades of gradient. A chain fountain pours from a pot upwards. Helen sings the most tongue-twisting song about the periodic table in the history of mankind. At one point they have the entire audience linked in an electrical circuit. We become acquainted with toroidal vortices. The unfortunate pickle gets it.

It’s entertaining, educational and funny. There’s some serious science in here, enough to satisfy the serious scientists. The Devizes audience has a higher ratio of nerd to non-nerd in relation to the usual audience, apparently. There’s stuff for tiny geeks, and fun stuff for those of us who are terminally mystified by all of it. Kids have come with their grandparents, and people under fifty are here!

The Devizes Festival Nerd experiment has proven to be an empirical success.

Gail Foster 2016