Aurie Styla: Tech Talk

Comedy of the Week

Stand-up comedian Aurie Styla, a 90s nerd, takes an autobiographical journey through technology history.

We begin in the early 90s, with the tinny sound of the Nintendo Game Boy and his first 13-inch television which only worked if asked very nicely, and he re-wired to show all the channels available - in total, four.

A technology lover since those days of that 13-inch TV and his first console, the Sega Master System – featuring ‘Alex Kidd In Miracle World’, the most frustrating video game of all time – Aurie has seen technology transform in a manner that would have been hard to believe in the 90s.

This show charts his personal relationship with machines, looking at the past (computer games that you had to load from cassette tapes), the present (houses that are lit and warmed via apps on your phone, cars that drive themselves without you) and the future (AIs that tell you how to dress and what to eat for dinner, and superior intelligences that command your every move whether you want to object or not).

Technology has moved on rapidly, from being a fun sideshow to the bedrock of our understanding of human life. Aurie guides us through this landscape with infectious wit, taking time to remember the awkward interface of MSN Messenger while also negotiating the modern culture of having to check with a virtual assistant before you turn your lights off. A warm, human show about the way the world has become less and less warm and human, celebrating the march of tech while being appropriately terrified of it.

An Impatient production for BBC Radio 4