Bright Club: Death 13th May

As part of the Before I Die Festival, we are pleased to bring Bright Club back to life with an event focussing on Death.

This will take place at Porters on Bute Terrace and will start at 7.45pm, 13th May. Entrance will be £4.

The evening will be compered by Chris Chopping and the line up will be:

Jenny Kitzinger – talking about putting on a Festival about death and dying

David Melkevik – talking zombies

Ezzy Pearson and the Death of the Universe

Dean Burnett and working in a mortuary

Dan Mitchell and working as an undertaker

Brendon Common and working in hospitals

Bright Club: Absences

Due to both the organisers changing jobs at the end of last year and the beginning of this and of one of the organisers becoming a Dad (congrats Dean!), we have not been able to organise a Bright Club for a while. However, we are back with a series of Bright Clubs leading up to a special Bright Club: Bodies at the Cardiff Science Festival in July. 

Our first event will be in April and will be a Bright Club spin off where we will trial potential new comperes so come along and let us know who you want to hear more from!

Christmas is cancelled

Due to multiple illnesses in participants, our Christmas themed Bright Club tonight (19th December) is cancelled. We will be back in the new Year so hope everyone has a good holiday!

Bright Club Wales 5: Christmas

Our seasonally themed Bright Clubs continue with the fifth night which will be on the 19th December. This is a week earlier than normal due to Christmas itself. 

We have the usual mix of academics and regulars on Cardiff’s comedy scene. Our academics will be covering architecture, sustainability and comedy itself!

£4 on the door, Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start.

Bright Club Wales 4: Fear

Bright Club, the thinking man’s variety night, is back! And as it’s Halloween, we’ve decided to make it a spooky-special!*

We have:

Regular MC Dr Dean Burnett: psychiatry teacher, who will regale you with stories from his time working in the anatomy school morgue, and also the true horrors that lie within the human mind.

Rhys Phillips: An expert on lightning, the stuff that brought Frankenstein’s monster. He will tell you all about his work on aeroplanes. You think you were scared of Lightning before? You don’t know the half of it.

Edward Gomez: Astronomer, will tell all about the universe and the cosmos, emphasising how cold and Godless the universe is, and how insignificant we all are.

Trevor J Williams: A local skeptic enthusiast with a health condition that means he could DIE AT ANY SECOND!

Bob Ramsey: A genuine Psychic and Medium, who will be communing with the dead live on stage for your terror and entertainment.

Plus more.

Come one, come all. If you dare!

£5 Entry, pay on the door

The venue is Buffalo Bar, Windsor Place, Cardiff

http://www.buffalocardiff.com/

[* = Bright Club is an academic comedy night aimed at providing laughs via a more intellectual route, so we acknowledge that ghosts are probably not real]

Autumn dates set

We have now set the dates for the next three Bright Clubs, which will be:

31st October
28th November
19th December

We nearly have the first line up complete and if anyone would like to have a go, please get in touch with us beacon@cardiff.ac.uk

Bright Club 3 – 25th July 2011

Monday 25th July at Buffalo, Cardiff

Doors 7:30pm £5 entry

Bright Club, the thinking person’s cabaret night returns for the Cardiff Comedy festival. And because it’s the comedy festival (and because academics are all at conferences during the summer) this time the reigns are being handed over to experienced comedians with intellectual opinions and views of their own. Bright Club promises the usual mix of high-brow observations and genuine belly-laughs, but this time with an even more surreal edge. Don’t miss it!

Acts lined up so far:

WES PACKER – Award winning Welsh comic, combines controversial views with a love of software and Bhuddism.

CHRIS CHOPPING – Bookish young optician’s employee with some brilliantly analytical takes on wine, social ettiquite and the service industry.

DAVID STEELE – Cardiff’s premier comedy medic returns to Bright Club before leaving the city for the wilderness of North Wales. Don’t miss his geographical Swansong.

DEAN BURNETT – Regular MC, since the previous event Dean has become Cardiff newest trainer of Psychiatrists, performed with Brian Cox and other scientific celebrities, and had a massive public conflict in a busy Gregg’s. Come hear all about it.

Musical Act:

ASHLEY FRIEZE – One of the UK’s most experienced and smartest Musical acts, performing songs about anything from quantum physics to bodily functions.

Update – additional acts

TED SHIRESS – Cardiff’s best stand up who also happens to have Cerebral Palsy, discussing his take on the concept of disability pride.

JONATHAN STABLER – Software expert who has applied quantum mechanics to politics.

TREVOR WILLIAMS – A brilliant newcomer with a hilarious take on epilepsy and tattoos.

Special Mini Bright Club tonight 23rd May

Doors 9pm Finishing around 11pm
KuKu Club, Park Plaza Hotel

We have half a Bright Club tonight in central Cardiff as part of a gathering of all of the Beacons for Public Engagement.

This will consist of Dean Burnett hosting with Piers Stanger (climate change), Mike Greenhough (Time) and Ben Connell (Physics) being the academic filling and musical entertainment by Owen Niblock. There will also be a special guest appearance from the father of Bright Clubs – Steve Cross from UCL

As this is not a full Bright Club, instead of the usual £5 entry we have decided to ask for donations on the door to Mind Cymru (specifically through Rachel Ann Bowen’s Three Peaks Challenge ). Rachel used to work for the Beacon for Wales and left us to work for Mind Cymru.

Future Bright Club Dates

Our next event was scheduled for 30th May but we have run into a problem with chairs – the venue don’t have enough, the University’s are all being used for exams and we can’t find a chair delivery company prepared to deliver on a Bank Holiday Monday. I know the event is a Stand-up comedy night but I don’t think it is meant to include the audience as well!

So our next event will be Tuesday 28th June at Buffalo, Cardiff. Sorry for the long delay between the events again but we will make it up to you in June.

Bright Club Wales 2 – 14th March 2011

Well, we have finally got things together for the second event. It will be taking place as part of National Science and Engineering Week on the 14th March at Bar Buffalo, Windsor Place.

We have a mixture of scientists and film studies academics.

Compering will again be done by the irreplaceable (but not for want of trying) Dean Burnett (Twitter.com/garwboy).

Guest Starring Dr Dave Steele, medic and comedian extraordinare (Twitter.com/hullodave).

Musical entertainment will come from the delightful Rachel Parris – Frequent partner and highly recommended by our previous musical sensation Helen Arney (http://rachelparris.wordpress.com/).

As before, doors will open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start and entry will be £5 on the door.

See you there!