TO teach us about pressure, my year seven physics teacher, Mr Travis, stood on a table dressed in a half trouser suit with flat shoe and half miniskirt with stiletto.

It was my favourite science lesson of all time – until Wednesday night at the Gala.

With musical-physicist Helen Arney, stand up mathematician Matt Parker and super scientist Steve Mould (whose experiment with beads out of a beaker earned became known as the Mould Effect), this is an eye-opening and enthralling two-hour romp through the mysteries of science.

Parker loves spreadsheets and numbers, so much so that we discover all life is basically made up of both, while Mould taught us how to create a fire tornado in a mesh bin on a lazy Susan.

Meanwhile Arney, sporting a periodic table dress, serenaded us with songs about synesthesia and cryogenics accompanied by her electric ukulele, and even managed to smash a glass by singing a high C.

And don’t even get me started on the excitement of toroidal vortexes, or the ability to create yellow light by hooking a pickle onto two nails wired to the mains, or even the ode to overhead projectors.

And the show continued after its official ending with the trio speaking to fans and signing their calculators (no, really, they did).

I won’t pretend that I understood all of it, but it was fascinating and fun, the first science show I have seen to surpass Mr Travis’ surprisingly shapely left leg.

  • Festival of the Spoken Nerd will perform at The Arc, in Stockton, on March 6.