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The ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Bloomsbury Theatre will play host to Bright Club, the thinking person's variety night, on 26 October.

Steve Cross of the ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Public Engagement Unit, explains the concept and history of this unique series of events.

"It's coming home…

Every month since September 2009 ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ staff have been taking to the stage at the Wilmington Arms comedy club in Clerkenwell to perform stand-up comedy about their areas of expertise.

We were keeping it a little bit of a secret from the ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ community, because we wanted to make sure that PhD students, professors and everyone in between really did make good stand-up comedians. It turns out that they do, and we've been selling out the Wilmington Arms regularly, so we're bringing Bright Club, the thinking person's variety night, back home to ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ this month.

On 26 October Bright Club is joining forces with the ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Bloomsbury Theatre and ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Museums to create a whole evening of comedy and entertainment, starring a mixture of professionals and ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ staff.

Bright Club was invented as a way to share ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ research with members of the public who wouldn't normally hear from us, and as a first step into public engagement for staff.

Past events have been sponsored by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Wellcome Trust, and we also record weekly podcasts supported by these two funders.

Performers on the 26 October include:

• Dr Joe Flatman, ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Institute of Archaeology
• , ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Information Studies
• , ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Science and Technology Studies
• , ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Institute of Archaeology
• , ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Grant Museum of Zoology
• , ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Petrie Museum of Egyptology
• , ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Museums

...and two-girl, two-bass cabaret band Strawberry and Cream.

That's an awful lot of entertainment, in London's best comedy theatre, for just £5 a ticket.ÌýÌý

Some things we've learned in more than a year of Bright Club:

• The European Noise At Work regulations mean that you can listen to less than 30 seconds of a heavy metal concert before you should stop for the sake of your hearing.
• It's difficult to be clandestine where a horse is involved.
• Viking poets were really just rappers with beards.
• The quickest way to clean a plate is to get a dog to lick it clean. Or just to turn it over.
• Ants get lost when they wear stilts.

To book tickets for Bright Club at the Bloomsbury, follow the link above, call +44 (0)20 7388 8822 or drop into the theatre box office."

Image: Bright Club audience by Hilary Jackson