EDINBURGH 2023: ALPHABET OF AWESOME SCIENCE Q&A

BWW caught up with the team behind Alphabet of Awesome Science to chat about bringing the show to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Alphabet of Awesome Science...

The Alphabet of Awesome Science is a scientific race through the alphabet, where great big chewy words inspire all sorts of quirky and explosive science.

The idea for the show had been kicking about in my head for close two decades before eventually making it to the stage. I've always been struck how kids latch on to 'big words' — teaching themselves to pronounce the longest words they can find, reciting lists of dinosaur names, and so on. So, I started looking through lists of old words and made some pretty awesome discoveries — words like dedoleate, spumescent and floccinaucinihilipilification! That is, words that tend to stump spell check software. Somehow I started organising these words into alphabetical lists, and from here the general form of the show started to evolve. We could march our way through alphabet, one letter at a time, with each letter standing for a quirky word that would then inspire some sort of scientifical shenanigan — that squirts, flies, erupts, fizzes or explodes. From that idea, two characters evolved — professors Lexi Con and Noel Edge (the Word Nerd and the Science Freak). Then we added the idea of a time limit, plus the notion that the audience could choose the order in which we explored our crazy alphabet.

It all adds up to a show that is as fun to perform as it is to watch. We honestly have no idea what letter, word or experiment is coming next, and whether we are going to beat the countdown! (We always do — except for that one time...!)

Why bring it to Edinburgh?

Partly because everyone told us that we must!

We've been performing the show since 2019, when it debuted at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. We've taken it back to that festival every year since then. During that time we've kept playing with the script, tweaking each moment, adding an opening song and generally building and evolving the basic idea. This show was born and grew up at the worlds second largest fringe festival, the next natural step is to take it (in all it's grown-up glory) to the world's BIGGEST fringe festival.

The show has a genuine 'fringe vibe'. It's highly conceptual, experimental, quirky, and a little anarchic (in a family-friendly way!). It's also just plain crowd-pleasing fun. We have a feeling we're going to feel totally at home in Edinburgh.

Of course, we're also taking this opportunity to showcase the work to other international markets. Who knows who might see the show and want us to visit their theatre or festival? We can't wait to start exploring all sorts of opportunities, and start taking this show around the world..

How has the show been received so far?

We have been very lucky to win a number of awards with this show — as well as a string of five star reviews.

At the Adelaide Fringe, the show has picked up a couple of weekly awards for "best children's event", plus it won the inaugural "science at the fringe award" (in 2021) — something we are VERY proud of.

Pretty soon after our first season, we picked up an agent for the show, who has now helped us to tour to over 80 venues and festivals around Australia — many of which we are now starting to return to. The show is proving very popular!

All of these things look great on paper, but the biggest most gratifying reception we get is when we chat to kids (and their adults) after shows. That's where we pose for a billion photos, hear about everyone's favourite words, and discover that there's a whole generation of budding scientists itching to start discovering new things about the world... 

  

How involved do the audience get?

Super involved!

Of course, it's our audience that dictates the way in which the show plays out, by selecting the order in which the letters for the show are lined up. So, right from the get go, everyone is one hundred percent invested in the process. And as each new letter, word and experiment is revealed, the clock keeps ticking down — and we know kids are eagerly watching to see if we're going to make it all the way through our alphabet in time. We always love the urgent cries of 'hurry up' that inevitably burst from a few anxious kids as the clock reaches its final minutes.

There's also a few experiments and demonstrations that reach out into the audience. The first couple of rows are what we like to call the 'splash zone'. If you're seated there, it's best to watch out for the vertiginating sprinkler and the erumpently erupting breakfast cereal! Plus, there's lots of moments for the whole audience to be involved in — playing games, shouting along with countdowns and responding to some pretty quirky questions.

One thing we absolutely love is when parents tell us that they were so involved in the show that they forgot that they'd brought their kids with them! That's something we are told over and over again...

But, it's the little personal involvements and entanglements with the shows content that delight us the most.

In our show, Z is for 'zephyr'. We were thrilled when a kid ran up to us after the show, bursting at the seams to tell us his name was Zephyr.

We also loved hearing about the netball team that had called themselves 'floccinaucinihilipilification' — which means to consider something as worthless! Self-deprecation at its finest.

What would you like audiences to take away from the show?

At the very least I'd love to think that every audience member walks away from our show with a smile on their face — having just spent an hour alternately giggling and gasping in awe.

But beyond that, we want inspire kids to dive into dictionaries and science kits

And beyond that, we want to enthuse everyone to embrace their geek-side — to be unapologetically passionate about the things they love.

The characters in our show are not trying to be cool — quite the opposite! They are simply being themselves. Professors Lexi and Noel dive deep into their geeky natures, nerding out enthusiastically about the things that tickle their brains. If we can be 'geek heroes' to our audiences, and inspire them to be passionate about the things they love, then that's the most wonderful outcome we could possibly imagine.   

Tickets are available here: The Alphabet of Awesome Science | Children's Shows | Edinburgh Festival Fringe (edfringe.com)

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