Have you heard the one about the scientist who does stand-up?
By Daniel Herborn
Have you heard the one about the photon checking into a hotel?
“Can I take your bags?” the receptionist asks.
“No, that’s ok,” the photon replies. “I’m travelling light.”
That’s just one of the gags you may hear from Rachel Rayner Science Explainer in her Sydney Comedy Festival show, Atomically Correct.
Bonnie Tangey’s show, Lab Meat, is also heavy on science. Inspired by her day job developing artificial meat, it covers recent developments including the work of a company that has developed a meatball from the DNA of a woolly mammoth.
Pleased to meat you: Bonnie Tangey mines her day job in the lab for her comedy routine.Credit: Steven Siewert
Rayner and Tangey are part of a growing trend that combines science and comedy.
Future Science Talks, where scientists collaborate with comedians to present their work in an accessible and fun format, have sold out across Australia. Adelaide Fringe Festival now has enough crossover shows to award an annual “Best in Science” accolade. And public health practitioner Alanta Colley has become a festival regular with shows on bees, alternative medicine and, er, poo.
For Rayner, who works as a science communications advisor, comedy is a “great entrance point” to all kinds of unexpected topics. As she points out, many comedians have found humour in traumatic experiences, so why not science?
She became passionate about physics at school while writing an essay on quarks, a type of elementary particle. “I was fascinated by this world of everything that’s happening that we can’t see, but that builds our whole universe. It was so mind-bending.”
Tangey, meanwhile, had already built a profile as a stand-up, making it to the national final of Raw Comedy, the leading competition for emerging comics, before she decided to bring her work as a scientist into her act.
“I started doing (this material) because I work full-time and I do comedy; it’s all I’ve got left to talk about,” she says. “But I’ve found that people are fascinated by it.”
She says Lab Meat is a comedy hour foremost. “It’s certainly not a science TED talk or something you would take your kids to – some of it is a bit rude – but [the audience] does learn a little because most people don’t know anything about lab-grown meat. My focus isn’t to educate people about stem cell science; it’s just to have fun with the ideas around what science can do now and into the future.
“It’s not tackling any of the big environmental questions; it’s a silly show. There’s a lot of talk of human meat in there. Obviously, we’re not going to make human meat, but it’s fun to chat about, and technically, with the technology we have, it’s something we could do.”
Described as a cross between Dr Karl and Barbie in one review, Rayner wants to bring an empowering message to women, whom quantum physics has traditionally marginalised. “This (show) is me standing up and saying, yes, this is a space for women and something women can understand, talk about and advance in.”
Is Tangey the funny one in her lab? “Not to be rude to my colleagues, but the bar [for humour] is often very low. It’s not hard to be the funniest one in the room when you’re with scientists.”
Rachel Rayner Science Explainer’s Atomically Correct, Enmore Theatre, May 18 to 19. Bonnie Tangey’s Lab Meat, Manning Bar, until May 19