The Edinburgh Fringe Archives – Matt Parker (Humble Pi, 2019)

The Edinburgh Fringe Show, with Ewan Spence

Maths and stand-up is a strange formula – but one that clearly has an abundance of puns if you put your mind to it. One performer who has put their mind to it is Matt Parker. Like many performers at the Fringe, he’s Australian but lives in the United Kingdom. His early days at the Fringe saw him appear in ‘multi bill’ shows, with two other scientists, taking 20 minutes each… before he stepped up to a full solo show.

One of those hours was in 2019, with Humble Pi. Based on the book of the same name, it brought ‘mathematical mistakes and errors’ from history to the stage, with hilarious results… all backed up with proof.

Non-nerds will enjoy it either way, but there’s simply too much content to cover for our host to actually talk us through all of the maths; this is a shame, because it leaves swathes of an otherwise-amused audience feeling a little lost in the middle of a joke. The trade-off, though, is that we get to learn about more ridiculous mishaps, and that’s definitely a price worth paying.

The Wee Review / * * * *

And so let’s regress (ahem) back to 2019, back to the Pleasance Dome, and back to, roughly Humble 22 over 7.

• Find out more about Matt Parker at his website, follow him on YouTube, or find him on Twitter @StandUpMaths.

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