Australian stand-up Kent Valentine presents a festival edition of the thinking person’s variety club – Bright Club Manchester. At the bigger venue of The Deaf Institute (café, bar and music hall), Bright Club Manchester celebrates its 10th instalment with the best and brightest of its previous performers, at 7:30 pm on Thursday 27th of October.
From the sewer to stars, their speakers will dissect science and innovation in unexpected, funny and thought-provoking ways. Valentine (LA Fringe Award for International performer at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, recently seen in “Sex, Maths and Eric Clapton” at the Camden Fringe) presents six stars who have all shone at the bimonthly event at Nexus Art Cafe.
Mark Purver, an astrophysicist at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, was the first act up at the very first BCM, with his talk about pulsars. Having also performed at the Green Man festival, he now tackles the vexed question of whether Pluto is a planet.
Sarah Morgan is an optometrist, famous for her YouTube hit song about presbyopia.
Jen Gupta is loved by astronomy fans everywhere for her JodCast astrophysics podcasts from Jodrell Bank.
For Tom Morris, comedy is a good chance to get away from the day job – analysing “water” samples. He says “we analyse 107,796 litres of sewage per year, that's 143,728 bottles of wine.”
David C Roberts, innovator and researcher in entrepreneurship at the University of Salford, will be presenting his vision of the future. In December he caused a stage invasion at Nexus Art Cafe – the perfect way to explain Everett Rogers’s theory on the diffusion of innovations.
Fat Roland is a DJ, writer and general-purpose musical genius. He is the 2010 winner of the Manchester blog awards for his blog about electronica.
Four-piece band Pyjama Party got everyone’s attention at April’s BCM, with their Victorian pyjamas (and rather special facial hair). Their music is a synth and ukulele-ridden romp through funk and ribald humour.
Organiser Hannah Mosley said “We’re so excited to be taking the show to a new audience, and it’s been absurdly good fun reuniting our favourite acts to put this together. The hard bit was picking from our 50-odd former performers!”
Bright Club Manchester is part of Manchester Science Festival. Over 150 events are taking place across the city and Greater Manchester from 22 – 30 October 2011. The event is sponsored by the Institute of Physics.
ENDS
Listing on Festival website: www.manchestersciencefestival.com
Follow us on twitter @BrightClubMcr #BCM10 @mcrscifest #msf11
Press enquiries for Manchester Science Festival 2011
Sarah Roe (Press & Publicity Officer)
Museum of Science and Industry
Email: s.roe@mosi.org.uk
Tel: 0161 606 0176
Emily Wiles (Festival Officer)
Email: e.wiles@mosi.org.uk
Tel: 0161 606 0125
Notes to Editors
About Bright Club Manchester
Bright Club is a number of comedy-club-style events in the United Kingdom promoting public engagement by scientists, academics and others with specialist knowledge. Bright Club Manchester had their first event in May 2010 and has been hosting events in Nexus Art Cafe every two months since then.
BCM9:CROSSOVER is a part of The Golden Ratio exhibition, exploring the relationship between the arts and science, at usual-BCM-haunt Nexus Art Cafe on Thursday 20th October.
BCM10:THE BIG ONE is a special best-of showcase, and BCM's debut at The Deaf Institute, on Thursday 27th October.
About Manchester Science Festival
Manchester Science Festival is an annual nine-day, multi-venue festival with the vision of inspiring and engaging people in science (science, technology, engineering and maths). It is Manchester’s premier event for public engagement with science, promoting the region’s rich heritage of past scientific achievements and endeavours whilst showcasing current innovative science and engineering research and practice. Last year over 80,000 people visited the festival and 80% of events are free.