KC Fringe "Scientist Turned Comedian" review by aStrassle

DR. COMEDIAN

Rating: 4

A Scientist Turned Comedian

KC Fringe Festival

You would never expect a man with a Ph.D. in Biology to be a comedian. Then again, you would never expect a comedian to have a Ph.D. in Biology either. YouTube sensation Tim Lee thinks this is possible. Traveling the road as a full time comic, Lee left the world of scientific academia to pursue his true love: comedy. Traveling the world, Tim Lee delights audiences across the world with a combination of funny one liner jokes mixed with scientific phenomena.

I was able to attend one of Tim Lee's performances at the Unicorn Theater. I've been to stand up comedy performances before, but never one where the comedian was a Doctor of Biology. It was that added twist to Tim Lee's story that intrigued me and made me want to see this "Scientist Turned Comedian" performance.

Now, Tim Lee is a hilarious guy and the act that he puts on is terrific. It makes me wonder if he would still be a funny comedian without the scientific background. Either way, his jokes were hilarious be it about how hair collects on a bar of soap to how his standards drop the longer he's been single. He explains everything in a poignant way through a series of PowerPoint slides.

There were some technical issues during the performance though. Throughout the entire show, his mike continuously refused to work properly. There were many times I was unable to hear him because his hand mike wasn't working. Personally, I found it repeatedly frustrating, but Tim Lee just used the problem as a way to include more jokes in his act, so it wasn't too bad.

Going into this show, I didn't really know what to expect. A part of me almost expected something big and flashy; something that maybe Bill Nye the Science Guy would put on with chemicals and fun experiments. This show is not like that. It's completely different. I actually prefer that. Tim Lee takes science and comedy and combines it into his own creative performance. If you're looking for something fun to do one night, I would thoroughly recommend attending Tim Lee's performance of "Scientist Turned Comedian." As the New York Times rightly wrote, it's "very cerebral comedy."