Kelly Goddard offers her insights into the pursuit of happiness in her show at The Newsagency in Annandale. With cabaret you are often presented with a variety of songs with a story linking them together. With Smart Girls Guide you are given the added dimension of some life coaching and some pearls of wisdom from Oprah and from Kelly’s collection of self-help books. Kelly’s voice fills the room and also has a lovely tone when singing softly. She covers a variety of styles including the belted out song typical of modern musicals and also boogie woogie, blues and pop music.
Kelly has lots of fun along the way as she describes her teenage romances with, among others, Orlando Bloom and a hapless fourteen year old named Harry. Poor Harry wrote a repetitive letter swearing to love and love her for ever and ever and ever which Kelly has turned into a humorous and memorable song.
Another brief romance is introduced with the Rodgers and Hammerstein song from Cinderella, Ten Minutes Ago, before the relationship turns sour and Kelly responds with a song in which she wants to punch him in the face, pull out all his hair and see him die.
The self-improvement advice continues with a mocking of meditation tapes. We are encouraged to “just feel the nonsense flow out” before the dialogue descends into a farcical exaggeration of the type of language found on these tapes and apps.
Kelly’s powerful voice and self deprecating humour keeps the show bouncing along until a dark and sombre twist explores a very serious topic. It reminded me of the switch that Hannah Gadsby threw in her show ‘Nanette’. SMART GIRLS GUIDE does return to more upbeat material with a rousing rendition of Carole King’s Beautiful. The show features excellent musical direction by Nicholas Griffin
Smart Girls Guide is an entertaining show and is recommended. It plays at Annandale’s The Newsagency as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival until September 21st, 2019.
