COMEDIAN
Last year I went along to Backyard Comedy club for a short talk about the BBC pips. Anyone who’s ever listened to BBC Radio 4 will be familiar with these six little bursts of noise, but where did they come from, and what do they mean?
With thanks to the Boring Conference for commissioning this talk in the first place, and to An Evening of Unnecessary Detail for inviting me to their night to recreate it, and for their work producing the video.
Tooting’s favourite comedy club is back with a delicious line up on November 21st!
HEADLINING:
Tania Edwards
Tania Edwards is an award-winning stand-up comedian and writer. She is a member of The Cutting Edge Team at The Comedy Store. Credits include Stand Up For The Week, Twit of the Year (Channel 4), Mock the Week, Après Ski (BBC2), and The Unbelievable Truth (Radio 4). She was a panellist on The Blame Game (BBC1 Northern Ireland), and a frequent guest on Radio 4’s Comedy Club. She recently supported Katherine Ryan on her sell out tour.
Tania was a finalist in the Hackney Empire, Amused Moose, Leicester Square, Latitude, and Funny Women competitions. Her five star solo show Not My Dog won the Amused Moose Comedy Award for Best Fringe Show 2018. Her most recent solo show Don’t Mention It garnered rave reviews. Her jokes were selected as Best of the Fringe in The Evening Standard, The Telegraph and The Mirror.
“Outrageous humour… Tania Edwards has mastered her craft” ***** Ed Fest Mag “Effortless comic genius” ***** Funny Women “sharp and savage wit” **** The Sunday Post
“Artfully sardonic delivery meets dark, penetrating humour… deplorably seductive” **** Fringe Biscuit
SUPPORT FROM:
Spring Day, Nicola Houghton (domestic goddess), Rachel Wheeley (can’t cook, refuses to learn) and Ant Dewson (nice buns)
See you there!
In June we took the Level Up Human podcast to Manchester for Bluedot Festival’s Microdot 001. A day of science, music and cosmic-culture for all the family at Hatch on Oxford Road.
Here’s the Level Up team in action for a couple of seconds! We’ll be bringing the Microdot episode with Prof. Andy Miah, Dr. Sarah Withers to your ears soon – our second series has just launched!
My podcast, Level Up Human, is back for a brand new series!
The first series of the podcast was supported by the Wellcome Trust. This time we are working with the Physiological Society. We have a residency at the Barbican in London, and we’ve just launched the first episode of the new series.
Episode details
Level Up Human is back redesigning the human body! This series we are supported by the Physiological Society. This episode was created with the help of the Society for Endocrinology, a world leading authority on hormones.
This episode was recorded at the Barbican as part of the Life Rewired season. Host Simon Watt and judge Rachel Wheeley are joined by Dr. Miles Levy, consultant endocrinologist and honorary associate professor at University Hospitals of Leicester. And by Dr. Clare Jonas, psychologist and blogger at That Thinking Feeling.
We asked Clare onto the podcast to talk about synaesthesia, a condition in which one sense is perceived as if by one or more additional senses. Clare tells us how she can ‘see’ the calendar, and explains loads more about synaesthesia: what it is, and how it would be great if everyone had it.
Miles is working on ‘liquid biopsies’ which might allow us to detect cancerous tumours via blood test in the future. He has lots to say on the pituitary gland, the ‘conductor of the endocrine-orchestra’ and explains how the condition acromegaly inspired the name of Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
If you’d like to see us live, we’re in the middle of a residency at the Barbican in London. Please join us on October 28th and November 7th 2019. You can reserve free tickets at https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2019/event/level-up-human
Episode summary
The team have brought news stories from the world of science to share before we kick off the pitches. Clare explains why elephants are basically cancer-proof, Miles sings the praises of the pituitary, and Rach has tardigrade news.
Then we hear pitches for how we should redesign the human body from each of the panellists, the studio audience and Mother Nature herself.
Clare would like every human to have synaesthesia and Miles would like to tone down testosterone. The audience want to eat like termites, recognise faces better and have more control of adrenaline. Simon really wants to make humans stripy. Which suggestions will make it onto Rach’s shortlist?
Mentioned this episode
Synaesthesia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
Acromegaly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acromegaly
The Hyrax: does this sound like a video recorder rewinding to you?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF3rPvzTPF4
Video recorder, for the under 35s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder
Tardigrades could hold the key to treating life-threatening injuries: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/could-an-extremophile-hold-the-secret-to-treatment-of-devastating-injuries/
Pareidolia (recognising faces in inanimate objects): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
Prosopagnosia (face blindness): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia
Extracts
“The pituitary gland is the most under-rated gland in the whole body. It is the size of a pea and it’s the conductor of the endocrine-orchestra (thyroid gland, adrenal gland, ovaries, testes, pancreas and all other glands in the body.) It controls every hormone in the body. It’s the most important, yet the most misunderstood and ignored part of the body.” – Miles Levy
“Everyone should have synaesthesia. It’s a completely harmless, possibly even helpful neurological condition where your senses get mixed up. So you might see colours when you’re listening to music, you might taste words, or in my case, you might see the calendar and numbers and letters of the alphabet all laid out in space in front of you which is hugely useful.” – Clare Jonas
“Mums are better. Actually, Grandmothers are better. Grandparents have the knowledge. They remember the last time there was a famine and we had to eat those weird berries. So old people are basically libraries of the past. They are a repository of knowledge that we have to keep.” – Simon Watt
Support us
If you’re enjoying the podcast, you can support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/leveluphuman
Or leave us an iTunes review: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/level-up-human/id1096637285
Follow us
Twitter: twitter.com/leveluphuman
Facebook: facebook.com/leveluphuman
Instagram: instagram.com/leveluphuman
Very excited that my comedy club has another gig coming up, on October 17th. We have the ‘ebullient’ Harriet Kemsley opening for us. The Scotsman described Harriet’s act as bursting onto the stage with a ‘ridiculous amount of fizz.’
Headlining is Steve Best, a visual genius who will keep you guessing until the end with his hilarious antics! Tickets are available here.
In support we have the wonderful JB Carter, one of my personal favourite acts on the circuit, and the dry and hysterical Jenan Younis, who is very very funny indeed.
And in addition, I will be doing some new material, Nicola will be hosting as usual and we will have the musical stylings of Ant Dewson in support.
Come along on the 17th October for guaranteed laughs, upstairs at the Wheatsheaf! TICKETS HERE.
First of all, forget new ideas. There aren’t any. See through toaster? Already exists. Dusting drones? Done. DIY bath milk? What are you even talking about Harriet, that’s not a thing. Oh alright then, it is.
Whatever you come up with, it won’t be new. New is just old + old smooshed into a ball. All the way back to, “I wonder what happens if I bang these rocks together?”
Think about it. See through toaster = toaster + window. Dusting drones = drone + your Nan. You can work out the bath milk one.
Point is, you’ve got nothing. I’ve got nothing. Nobody’s got anything – every thought has been thought before. The good news is, it doesn’t matter. Smashing old ideas together is a valid way to become Elon Musk/Cardi B/any other entrepreneur you can think of.
How is it done though?
Years ago, this dude J.W.Young wrote a thing about how to come up with fresh stuff. He was in advertising, so we can assume he had to produce every day. He didn’t believe in ‘new’ either.
Here’s his method:
The good idea, according to Young, has ‘self-expanding qualities.’ If a friend thinks of things to add, you may be onto something. If they say nothing but nod politely as their eyes glaze gently over, you might want to drop it.
Coming back to his method years later, Young added that pursuing ‘general materials’ for the idea producer’s reservoir is best done as an end in itself, rather than whilst boning up for something.
With thanks to Maria Popova at Brain Pickings for an article about Young and a bunch of other stuff on creativity, productivity and how to be a human in the world.
We’ve had a great run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – here’s a review we received from DIVA magazine, which we’re delighted to add to the lovely one we got from Bi Community News last week!
FRINGE REVIEW: The Unfortunate Bisexual
