Ticket Link: Nerdfest P****d-up Podcast Q&A 

What is your time slot, date and venue?

For the very first time, we’ll be doing our podcast LIVE – straight after The Suggestibles on Friday 2nd August at 10:30pm at Alphabetti Theatre. It’s a wonderful venue and we of course love The Suggestibles. We’re calling it the Nerdfest Pissed Up Podcast, because inevitably there’s going to be a few drinks involved…

Hello! Tell us all about Nerdfest!

We’re Nerdfest (www.nerdfestpodcast.com) , and we run a twice monthly podcast all about the nerdy things in life that we’re passionate about! From TV shows to movies to books, we make new recommendations for our listeners, and have some fun by setting each other trivia quizzes. For example, our Film Buff or Film Buff quiz, we all have 3 behind the scenes film facts, but we’ve made one of them up, so the others have to try and work out which fact is the bluff ☺

How did you get into creating a podcast?

We are all incredibly good friends, and we got to know each other by attending the School of Improv workshops. We realised during our post workshop pub visits that we all had similar interests and could talk for hours about various nerd theories, that we thought we should turn it into a show!

How are you feeling about performing at the first ever Newcastle Improv Festival?

So excited! We are all improvisers and we’re all performing in various gigs throughout the festival, so we can’t wait to introduce more people to improv and hopefully have a thoroughly entertaining evening with our podcast.

Tell us all about your show you are bringing to Newcastle?

We’ll be bringing some of our regular features such as our quizzes to involve the audience, but putting an improv spin on them. We’ll be talking about the power of improv and what it can do for people, as well as interviewing some very experienced improvisers to find out what it takes.

This is your first live show as a podcast how are you feeling about it?

Usually Peter edits us so we all sound much more eloquent and succinct than usual – we won’t have any of that so chances are there will be some unpolished moments and accidental slip ups, but they’re always funny! Genuinely, we have such a great time creating our podcast and are often in tears of laughter whilst we record it, so we want to bring the same vibe to our live show and engage the audience as much as possible.

what have been some of your favourite episodes so far?

“Someone’s going to Nerd Jail” where Dan valiantly tried to defend the TV series Lost from being sent to Nerd Jail, after Ian had presented a very valid prosecutorial argument. Also “It Sounds Amazing, but…” where Ian got us to try and guess the movie from various monster sound effects. We also love recording our immediate reactions after major cinema releases such as ‘Avengers: End Game’ – we all gather in Hazel’s car and chat about what we thought.

What other acts are you looking forward to seeing?

We can’t wait to see the legendary Pippa Evans from Showstoppers! perform with The Suggestibles. Plus 4 1 Night Only, which is a long form improv show, is going to be absolutely awesome (we’ve had a sneak peek of what’s involved!) Several of us are also attending Stella Duffy’s Improv for Writers workshop – to be in the presence of such a big name will be an incredible honour, and she’s going to help us shape characters, and break through writer’s block.

What have been some of the most unique and different comedy shows you have seen this year and why?

The Elvis Dead was one of the most unique shows we’ve seen recently, melding the story of 80’s schlock-horror Evil Dead 2 with the music of Elvis Presley, performed with boundless energy by Rob Kemp. It’s the only show this year, or in fact any year, where we saw a man holding a chainsaw, smashing plates over his head whilst singing a Presley classic.

What is the three things you are looking forward to most performing in Newcastle?

Celebrating our love for improv, engaging with our audience, and simply having a damn good laugh.

If people want to find out more about you where can they follow you on social media?

We’re @NerdfestUK on Twitter and Facebook

And Finally in three words – Why should people come and see the show?

Trivia, laughter, and mistakes!

# what advice would you give to someone who wanted to start a podcast

Do it! Think about your angle/approach (i.e why are you different to other podcasts in your subject area?) and think about what your audience would want to take away. Good quality sound is crucial, so invest in some microphones and record in as quiet a place as possible.