Luke Sunderland, a Professor in French from our School of Modern Languages and Cultures, combines his research on the Middle Ages with stand-up comedy. During July and August he is due to perform at the Durham and Newcastle Fringe Festivals, as well as the Greater Manchester and Buxton Fringes, before performing at Edinburgh in August. We spoke to Luke to find out more.
My research is in the field of medieval studies and I have recently been bringing my academic and comedy personas together.
I'm part of a monthly show at the Stand Comedy Club in Newcastle called ‘Nerds Just Wanna Have Fun’. The show features comedy on unusual topics, such as science, geography and history, and has attracted a devoted audience who want something different to your average comedy night.
It goes back to GCSE drama. My friend and I always did silly sketches and tried to make people laugh. Then I was in an improv group at university and a sketch act after that, before finally trying stand-up.
I've performed for academic-comedy crossover shows like ‘Comedy for the Curious’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Bright Club at Durham Student Union. Those opportunities showed me that there is a lot of curiosity about the medieval period and a desire to explore it in humorous ways. People love medieval images and stories.
I want to avoid the tired medieval themes of kings and battles, and any view of the period as about disease and decline, so I focus on ideas, stories and inventions to show medieval thought, experiment and imagination.
I tell audiences about creatures like sea-centipedes and manticores, dogs with names like Havegoodday, and famous inventors like Eilmer the flying monk. I show them the old world’s taste in tourist tat and try to convince them that medieval medicine – with treatments involving things like dragons’ blood – was much more exciting than the modern kind.
I've developed the material over the last year and a half by performing at Nerds and seeing which medieval ideas intrigue people and make them laugh.
The Newcastle stand-up scene has been very supportive and friendly and has lots of people doing comedy in innovative and brilliant ways.
Excited and nervous. You never know who will come to a show in Edinburgh, or what they will make of it, since there is such a mix of shows and audiences there. But that's half the fun.
I'd like to perform at other festivals, such as Brighton, and at cultural and heritage venues. Naturally, it's a show that could be performed in a castle or two.
Luke is performing throughout July and August 2025. People can find out more and book tickets using Luke's Linktree (which is under his stage name Luke Connell).
/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/central-news-and-events-images/83431-1920X290.jpg)