The Alphabet of Awesome Science
Young minds ignite when art meets science in a fun and informative hour, as professors Lexi Con and Noel Edge (aka the Word Nerd and the Science Freak) take young minds on a thrilling voyage through the alphabet.
By Tierney Seccull
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED by David Lampard, who plays the role of Professor Noel Edge (say that name slowly out loud), inspo for this wild hour of science comes from his time working professionally in science and the arts.
“My career’s a weird one – I’m a scientific communicator, as well as a theatre creator, opera director, and designer,” he says.
“One of the things I used to do was to go into schools and do incursion work with kids. I found that, whenever I threw out a big word, kids would want to say that word, they’d revel in it, they wanted to explore it and chew on it, and I thought, ‘hmm, I reckon there’s a show here!'”
He was right. And finally, after touring the world and over 230 performances, Darwin’s the last capital city in Australia for The Alphabet of Awesome Science to perform.
The duo of geniuses has just 52 minutes to complete 26 scientific demonstrations – that’s one for each letter of the alphabet. And if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, there’s an exciting element of surprise. It’s up to the audience to determine the order of the letters, except for a few special letters and their corresponding experiments.
“There’s six experiments that get locked in across the show, because we know they’re the big spectacular ones … Our last letter is always the letter N, which is for nephelococcygia – it’s a fantastic word, and literally the act of observing shapes in clouds, like when you see a fluffy duck in the sky,” Lampard says.
Despite plenty of room for things to go wrong, with experiments and tricks coming down to the wire, the audience is in for a very good time. Armed with dad jokes and a knack for pulling pranks, the professors make things float and fly, squish and squirt, and just plain explode.
Lampard says it’s important young minds are exposed to the world of science.
“It is an ever-changing world, we are facing so many things – the climate crisis, the rise of AI – there are so many things we need to give kids language around to be able to engage in conversations,” he says.
“For us to be able to present a show that is a variety show of science, with so many basic concepts and ideas … it begins that conversation so that science isn’t scary.”
With an exciting and unique show, every single time, even the grown-ups can enjoy this hour of utter scientifical chaos, so head along to learn The Alphabet of Awesome Science.
The Alphabet of Awesome Science
WHEN THU 21 MAR, 5.30PM | FRI 22 MAR, 9.30AM & 12PM
AT DARWIN ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE
COST $25 | $20 CONC/CHILD
INFO yourcentre.com.au
