Seeing the Candle for the Trees

Last Friday night, the 19th of December, I was up in Canberra at the remarkable National Arboretum to perform 'Faraday's Candle', a 50-minute one-man show based on natural philosopher (scientist) Michael Faraday's 1848 Christmastime lectures, 'The Chemical History of a Candle'.

This show was developed for Inspiring Australia, the national strategy for science engagement, and has been presented by CSIRO over the last three years in various venues: churches, cathedrals, conference centres, the theatre at Sovereign Hill, the Canberra science centre Questacon, and now the Arboretum. We've done short seasons and one-offs and last Friday was a one-off. Below: me as Faraday drawing a diagram of a burning candle.

The team behind the show is: myself as writer/collaborator and actor; Carly Siebentritt (Inspiring Australia) as collaborator and producer, and Chris Krishna-Pillay (CSIRO) as collaborator and director. We had a lovely audience of 100 or so on Friday, including a man who had, years ago, borrowed a copy of Faraday's lectures from the ANU library and read them to his young daughter - and turned up to see our show with the very daughter!  And... they liked it - phew!

Above is some natty lighting by Chris: this is the point in the show where I become Sir Humphrey Davy, Faraday's mentor, the man who "...first described the light of the candle in terms of incandescent particles of solid carbon," as Faraday says in the script. To the left, the eponymous candle. To the right, Lake Burley Griffin.

"All that remains at the end of this lecture is to express a wish that YOU may be fit to compare to a candle..."

Faraday's great because his influence on today's world is profound: his discovery of the generation of electricity by magnetic induction changed our relationship to nature irrevocably. But his dedication to education meant that he delivered these candle lectures again and again because they are a profoundly accessible introduction to fundamental ideas about fire, physics, and chemical reactions. And here we are, continuing his tradition.

The trailer for the show (made by Chris) is on the Faradays Candle page. Carly took these pictures on Friday night. A tip of the fedora to them both: great people to work with.

I'm touring Japan with The Smiths!

Getting ready for a trip to Tokyo.  I leave Melbourne on Monday at 5.30pm and will be away for 2 weeks.  It's a Japan/Australia science performer exchange, organised by Questacon (the National Science and Technology Centre) and the Australian National University's Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS).  Last year, a group of science performers from Japan visited Questacon and developed a performance with Australian science performers, this year the vice is on the other versa.

There are five of us 'science performer' types going (Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland and Canberra are represented), and we have two minders, one from Questacon and one from CPAS.  On Wednesday we'll meet the 5 Japanese science performers that we'll be collaborating with, and we then have 4 days (four!) to create a show together that will be presented at a big 'Science Agora', or festival, on Sunday the first of November.  Now that's guerilla theatre!  We will be rehearsing and presenting at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, Miraikan (literally, 'Future Museum').

After the exchange is over, I'm going to stay on for 4 days to have a look around Tokyo, to peek (and hopefully bike) around the centre of the Manga universe.  Now, my aim is to blog both the museum and the manga elements of this adventure (in a classics comics crossover moment, I have learnt that on the Monday morning, a Professor of Botany is going to give a manga mushroom lecture - WOW) and I aim to use both drawings and photographs to illustrate what I write about.

So, I'm getting ready to go: what am I packing, you ask?  Well, clearly I will need to be well dressed, so, in goes my...

well, I will need a...

let me tell you that it's  ---

Yes, my beloved Paul Smith shirt.  The two panels above are from a 4-page comic strip story I did in 2004, which I'll get around to posting, one of these years.  Hermann Flaneur is a character of mine who you can learn more about here.  However, man does not live by shirt alone (though some days I am sorely tempted), so I'm going to take at least two more items of clothing.

What might they be, you ask?

Well what else?

My Paul Smith socks.

Heck, I may just complete the quartet and take along my Paul Smith cravat.  

You never know when one will come in handy.