Bright Club
By day, Rebecca Shepherd is a very serious PhD candidate at Lancaster University, UK, where she researches the role of fat cells in bone health. By night, however, she is a (one-time) stand-up comedian.
The first rule of Bright Club is that you must tell all your friends about Bright Club. Described as the thinking man’s variety club, Bright Club converts academics into comedians. It was the brain child of Steve Cross and Miriam Millar, and started in London in 2009, quickly expanding across the UK, Ireland and Australia.
Not all academics like public speaking. There is a hormonal mechanism within your body that releases adrenalin when individuals are put in a stressful situation, causing a ‘fight or flight’ response. Do you know what researchers use to deliberately elicit a fight or flight response in a human test subject? Yep, you’ve guessed it – public speaking! With that in mind, what motivated me to willingly participate in stand-up comedy?