The Inventor of All Things

Rating:

Company: big word performance poetry

Genre: Storytelling

Venue: 10 - Planetarium Auditorium

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"If Leo Szilard had not existed, you would not make him up could not make him up. No one would believe you."

So says fringe veteran Jem Rolls in this frenetic and captivating ode to the under-recognized Hungarian physicist who invented magnets to hold up ladies' stockings as well as an electric barber chair, and also solved the mysteries that enabled the creation of the atom bomb.

• Winnipeg Fringe 2017: read our reviews

That he's less a household name than Einstein or Oppenheimer seems an affront to Rolls, who lays out Szilard's immense contributions to science and, ironically, world peace in a solo show that'spart history lesson, part biography and completely engrossing.

Part history lesson, part biography and completely engrossing.- Joff Schmidt

Rolls shows off his trademark skill with language with repeated refrains and smart wordplay, but also amply displays his wry sense of humour for a monologue about the man who had the "biggest, scariest idea anyone ever had," this piece is surprisingly filled with laughs.

It's for fans of history, science or anyone intrigued by the notion of learning more about the most interesting man you've never heard of.