Pardon the interruption for a comedy eruption.
Scientist turned stand-up Ben Miller is bringing something to Houston rarely seen – a night of laughter and learning all about the powerful geological phenomena: the mighty volcano.
Stand-Up Science Presents: Volcano will be presented for one night only at the
Houston Museum of Natural Science at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 10 .
“It’s an hour of jokes about volcanoes,” Miller says without exaggeration. “It came about because last February, I was the artist in residence at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I was the first stand-up comedian selected, because why would they? I just saw it as a thing online, and usually it's poets or painters or people with actual talents or whatever. I was like, maybe I’ll send them an application and see what happens. But I think I’m also the only person who has ever sent a full bibliography with their application.
"And I think the science background gave it a bit of something, so it was a month in Hawaii and I got to explore the national park and meet with park rangers and scientists and learn a lot about the island and the culture. I had a lovely time there and ever since I’ve written a bunch more jokes and now it’s a show.”
Coming off of a 50-city tour, including a sold-out 23-show run at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Miller comes armed with both extensive material and the ability to handle even the rowdiest crowd of science joke enjoyers. “People are shocked,” he deadpans. “People have been very nice. It has drawn a good crowd of nerds and people who love comedy. Also one time at a show, I had been onstage for maybe 30 seconds and a guy in the front row just announces ‘I’m a geologist and if you get any fact wrong, I’m gonna heckle you about it.’ That puts the pressure on, having some hardcore scientists [watch].”
The premise of the show begets an obvious question: does the volcano naturally inspire comedy? Are they funny in and of themselves? Miller's answer gives much to chew on. “I don’t know if anything naturally inspires joke creation more than anything else,” he says circularly. “It’s just like, whatever a comedian is inspired by. They hang out on an airplane, they write jokes about airplane food. They hang out with volcanoes, they write jokes about volcanoes.”
Long before his month-long hang in Hawaii, Miller has always had a love for the art of science. “From a very young age, I wanted to be a scientist,” he recalls. “I only started doing stand up comedy in the middle of college when I was already getting my degree in
materials science . Comedy definitely came second to that but now has become the primary thing.”
The comedian concedes that despite the drastic career pivot, there are many similarities between stand-up and the scientific method. “I think it’s a pretty similar process. You have an idea, you test it out in the lab and if the experiment didn’t go well, you’ll tweak this variable, or control for this or change this. You bring it back tomorrow and run it again, the same way you run it at open mics and shows. You see what works well here, where this is a reference that America gets but in the UK they don’t know who like this is. You are definitely tweaking it for various audiences. There’s a lot you can learn from the scientific method.”
While learning is optional, Miller is quick to defend the audience’s right to be lazy while in attendance. “If you want to learn things, you can learn things,” he agrees. “But there is no pop quiz at the end. You’re not getting a grade as sn audience member on how you did sitting there. You don’t need to be a scientist or have a science background to enjoy. It’s a stand up comedy show. I love jokes. It’s all jokes.”
The only question remains: with the volcano conquered through stand-up, does Miller expect to comedically dissect any other natural phenomena? “No, its only the volcano!” he jokes. “How dare you!”
He continues, more soberly: “Who knows? The previous show I was touring around was random science jokes, without a strong theme. This show I’ve been touring since April, and this show is still formed but there are parts that are still being developed and tweaked. I haven’t even thought of the next project, but I am glad you are pushing me. What about tornados? What about typhoons?”
Ben Miller’s performance is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 10 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park. For more information, call 713-639-4629 or visit my.hmns.org . $12-18 
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