Review by Steve Bennett

Brainbox Kathy is giddy with excitement at the prospect of her first maths (and science) camp. Her graphing calculator and Periodic Table T-shirts are all packed, as she leaves home for a thrilling week of integral calculus, vector-space analysis and titration. But something less easy to quantify awakens when she encounters the tall, and equally nerdish, Stephen – but her feelings are confused when he appears more interested in another happy camper.

At first, this socially inept overachiever appears to be something of a one-dimensional character, with most the jokes emanating from the over-enthusiastic glee she directs at the uncoolest of academic pursuits. Look, now she’s getting excitable about a differential equation!

But Tangey, and director Lorin Clarke, have managed to extract more than you might expect out of this idea. The story of blossoming, awkward love is quite touching, and they’ve also added sly side jokes to appeal to their target audience’s intellectual snobbery. There can’t be many comedy festival shows that reference Sixties physics heart-throb (yes, really) Richard Feynman.

Tangey looks and acts the part perfectly as her emotions are pulled one way and the next with the rise and wane of Stephen’s interest; not to mention her successes in the all-important maths camp exercises. This story of her week unfolds in a series of monologues – teenage diary entries, really – that also build up a back story to her geekiness.

An hour proves a bit of a stretch for this one-woman show, with no other characters for her to bounce off. The story could be told and Smith’s personality explored in maybe two-thirds of the time. But Tangey has nonetheless created a convincing comic persona, and produced an enjoyable show that fully explores her possibilities.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
May 2006

Review date: 1 Jan 2006
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett