STEVE Mould is a trailblazer in the strictest sense of the word.

Along with his chums and fellow Festival of the Spoken Nerd science whizzes he routinely flouts the health and safety code to start ‘controlled’ fires billed as bona fide experiments.

Scientific endeavour and borderline pyromania often go hand in hand to spell out complex principles, he insists.

“The experiments start off incredibly dangerous and we’ve got a lot of risk assessments to satisfy the venues that we’re going to,” says the BBC presenter and former Blue Peter alumnus playfully. “We make it safe in the process but there are inherent risks. We have a fire extinguisher on stage and the audiences are always safe.”

Fresh out of Oxford, the physics graduate packed in academia and set about forging a career as a nerdy stand-up but steered well clear of any brainy topics on stage. Finally, though he saw the error of his ways and began blending experimental science with straight comedy.

He could have happily continued as a one-man band but fate had other plans.

While performing at the Edinburgh Festival, he befriended two like-minded scientists, mathematician Matt Parker and geek songstress Helen Arney, who in their unique way were each attempting to diversify the stand-up pool and enlighten lay audiences with their science-bent routines.

They joined forces five years ago and together formed the science phenomenon that is Festival of the Spoken Nerd.

“At the Fringe Festival we realised we were sharing the same audiences and had the same sort of approach so we sat down and had a little meeting in Edinburgh. The name came from Matt actually. We decided to do a monthly gig in London.

“We get to be as nerdy as we like with a lot of banter. I will be doing my bit on stage and the other will heckle me from the deskThat’s how it works.”

Devising high octane experiments on demand to explain such mind-boggling concepts as magnetism has left Steve scratching his head in frustration. Thankfully the Eureka moment was never too far behind and to this day, he has never let his learned audience down.

“The process of making things understandable is quite tricky,” he concedes. “The explaining can’t be unsatisfying so you have to try and persuade someone the idea is palatable. You have to think about what you know and how to get there through easy logical steps so people understand.”

Hot on the heels of their Full Frontal Nerdity tour, the trio have now concocted an explosive new show Just For Graphs.

Using flaming parabolas, supersize charts and hazardous pyrotechnics they’ve amped up their geeky antics to illustrate all graph-related matters. Musical interludes courtesy of Helen also tackle abstract phenomena and attempt to make physics and even maths approachable and, dare we say, fun.

“It’s totally accessible,” adds the 37-year-old. “It has to be entertaining and interactive. If a lay person doesn’t go ‘That’s amazing’ then we’ve failed.”

While decades of study have unlocked most of the universe’s mysteries, Steve admits one man-made paradox still confounds him: The Magic Roundabout.

“It’s a mathematical solution to a problem: we’ve got all these roads coming so we’re going have to have all these backwards roundabouts going round a bigger roundabout. It would work – if people were robots. I don’t understand how so many roads would go all in one place.

“I will definitely have to go through it as an experiment.”

Festival of the Spoken Nerd will be at the Wyvern Theatre on November 4 at 8pm. To book visit swindontheatres.co.uk or call 01793 524 481.