Review: ADELAIDE FRINGE 2016: COSMIC NOMAD Involves Sex, Physics and Introspection

Reviewed by Christine Pyman, Wednesday 24th February 2016

"Whether we are alone, or not, both are equally terrifying" Arthur C Clarke

Josh Richards, the self-proclaimed ginger leprechaun, a physicist and a stand-up comedian who used to be a comedy koala, might be one of the first people to live on Mars. He is a candidate astronaut, who is signed up for the one-way trip of a lifetime, and is looking forward to it.

The 2001 theme song, played as an opener to Cosmic Nomad, seamlessly segueing into "hooked on a feeling" sets the scene for a quick-witted show packed with exciting, interesting facts, that not only entertain, but help you learn as you laugh. Appropriately, this event is held in The Science Exchange Auditorium at RiAus.

Richards is a natural raconteur, entertaining us with references to Futurama, Carl Sagan, velociraptors, and sex, in between the physics. Like the best comedians, the stories are a form of purging emotional upheavals from his life, which leave us entertained and him feeling better.

This show is deceptively deep and is guaranteed to send you away thinking. he takes us from the big questions, such as what sort of person is willing to go on a one way trip 350 million kilometres to Mars, to the equally fascinating question of how does one defecate in space, and what happens to it, and including an anecdote about the infamous floater in Apollo ten.

We learnt correlations between Tinder and Drakes Equation, exploring the equal likelihood of picking up compared to the chances of finding intelligent alien life. This is a highly personal show that is intensely entertaining and a geek's dream.

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