Published in The Pun, Issue 1, 2006

Penny Tangey’s comedy has grown up a bit since I last saw her. Where she used to draw heavily on her Grade 6 diary for material, Tangey has now turned her attention to high school and taken on the character of 15-year-old Kathy Smith. Her performance style has matured as well—after a few years of doing fifteen minute grabs in ensemble shows, she now has a full-length narrative show all to herself.

In Kathy Smith Goes to Maths Camp we join the title character on a personal odyssey—Year Nine Concentrated Extended Acceleration Camp. For a week she leaves her native Traralgon to stay in a real university and talk about vectors and parabolas with kids from all over Victoria. Kathy loves maths, and chemistry—but as the camp progresses, she realises that boys are a bit harder to figure out than equations.

Kathy pays out on the superficial, imaginary TV show GirlZone (which she doesn’t watch, of course—that is, unless her feminist Nana is out at the shops) and takes a dig at the high school girls who act like being depressed is a competition. She asks the tough questions—‘which member of Dead Poets’ Society would you marry?’ ‘What’s your favourite element?’ and is blissfully ignorant of her own dagginess. Kathy Smith Goes to Maths Camp is a hilarious portrayal of life as a nerd in the Aussie school system, and a nice alternative to some of the more confrontational, sweary shows at the Festival.