Jon Milton from our Punk Science team writes about a new era for Punk Science.
Just like when you buy a pack of chewing gum and only have a £20 note, change is inevitable. And change has lifted its fickle finger and pointed at Punk Science. For those of you who are new to Punk Science may I suggest using the excellent search engine Google to familiarise yourself with our oeuvre. Or, if you can’t be bothered doing that, here’s a potted history. Punk Science is the world’s first museum based science comedy team. We started back in 2004 featuring the talents of Rufus Hound, Kat Nilsson, Brad Gross, Ben Samuels and myself. The line-up has changed over the years as has the format from more of a stand-up style, to a hybrid of stand up and the excellent science shows performed by the Science Museum’s brilliant Learning team.
But now, a new era is about to begin in Punk Science. With the immensely talented Dan Hope leaving to pursue his acting career we were faced with the unique challenge of finding someone who is both quite good at science communication and can be quite amusing at the same time. After an arduous selection process involving an assault course, a baking contest and a spelling test, it was Science Museum Explainer and comedian Sam Furniss who served up a particularly good millefeuille accompanied by an ability to spell millefeuille that lead to his selection.
What can you expect to see in the new era of Punk Science?
Some of the same stuff people liked from our extensive back catalogue along with the new game show featuring at Lates on the last Wednesday of every month. This is a new style of science show taking the conventional demonstrations based format and combining it with the competitive elements of a TV game show. The idea is to attract an adult audience who wouldn’t normally go to a science themed event by using main stream entertainment techniques. It’s the next generation of “The Generation Game”. For those of you, who aren’t familiar with “The Generation Game”, add it to the list of things to Google.
Tickets are available for the all new Punk Science: The Game Show via the Science Museum website. You can also catch them at NerdNite London this month, and next month at NerdNite Brighton as part of the Brighton Science Festival, as well as at The Angel Comedy Club. Follow them on Twitter for updates and science-based comedy interjections.
Their children’s book “The Intergalactic Supermassive Space Book” is available via the Science Museum shop and at other good retailers.