Keira Daley delivers nerd cabaret with a kick

LadyNerd is one woman with a memory for all manner of facts and figures, and an-equally provocative voice to boot!

Performing at Perth’s Fringe Festival, the lady behind the show’s name, Keira Daley, captured an avid audience with her dramatic show-telling of accomplishments by women across centuries.

Her cabaret-style method of parting information that is at once nerdy and sophisticated – two adjectives you wouldn’t usually throw together – is innovative, to say the least.

Said Daley in a post-show interview with Rock Candy: “There’s positive inspiration for [the show] and then there’s the Reaction-Against-Things inspiration for it.

Daley got her first spark to start critiquing the representation of women-folk from seeing the sort of ‘nerdy’ imagery of models in Prada specs being utilised as an advertising vehicle, the result being genuine “nerd rage” as Daley calls it.

“As I was watching the slide-show,” tells Daley, “I thought: what are they showing here?”

LadyNerd is both an embracement of achievements by women as well as a reactionary performance with a self-professed feminist-drive. The way in which Daley portrays the stories of these accomplishments in speech and song is truly remarkable.

Hedy Lamarr, Nellie Bly, Marie Curie and Amelia Earhart have all been granted segments in the LadyNerd show, with Daley utilising a direct quote from Lamarr that sums up the feminist slant well: “Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”

Another inspiration behind the LadyNerd gig is also a reaction to the nerd-stereotype and the exhaustion of nerd-dom as a marketing tool.

Daley is serious-faced when she says “Big Bang Theory just pisses me off”.

“The portrayal is so irritating. You don’t have to be completely off the planet or inaccessible as a human being to still have some kind of intellectual rigour or to achieve things as an inventor or pioneer.”

And then she laughs as she states: “On the flip side of it, just because you love playing video games, it doesn’t mean you’re a nerd, either. Nerd is about being curious, about being obsessed with ideas. It’s an intellectual rigour, it’s a world view.”

In essence, LadyNerd is a show that is as much a lesson as it an entertaining piece of cabaret and Keira Daley does wonders to bring the strength of her voice to delight audiences.

Pianist and musical director, Mark Chamberlain, performs in complementary tune, adding some seriously fabulous cabaret with a punch.  Andrea Manno

Keira Daley recently took part in Fringe World Perth, for more great Fringe performances, visit www.fringeworld.com.au.