Life is just a chaotic series of events without purpose or meaning… unless you are a mathematician. Then everything makes sense! Simon Pampena is a stand-up mathematician who, like Steven Bradbury, knows the truth behind dumb luck.
“… hilarious, a riot from beginning to end.” — The Advertiser
Restricted 18+

Adults: $15 Concession: $13

View media release: (Maths busting! 17 February 2011)

Reviews:

Australia & NZ comedy guide – Chortle

Simon Pampena is Australia’s Numeracy Ambassador, and while there may not have been many candidates for the job, equally I couldn’t imagine anyone better suited to it. He’s got buckets of charisma, a big smile, enthusiasm and is a clear and witty communicator.

The show does have elements of Sesame Street about it; a couple of songs, a numerical costume and – Lord save us – a dance. This is strange for an over-18s only event, but probably goes down a bomb on school visits. However the show flashes past with plenty of laughs and stimulates bits of brain that may have lain dormant for decades, I left feeling livelier than when I arrived.

Using subjects close to the Australian heart, AFL, sport, gambling and underdogs, Pampena makes maths more exhilarating than it’s ever been in my life.

Without resorting to “lies, damned lies and statistics” as a heading, one of the most entertaining aspects of the show demonstrates how manipulation of information in stat form can be used to create fabulous stories. Who’d have thought Jamaica stood so high in the Olympic medal tally in Beijing? And there is plenty more of this engagingly explained at top speed.

If he’s not on TV yet, there’s definitely a corner somewhere for him. If he reduces the song and dance aspect, certainly for the adult audience, the show will definitely be strengthened – after all he’s not going to garner an audience of simpletons with a title like that. But the rest of it is fast, furious and unpatronising.

A real refresher of a show, you’ll never have seen anything like this and it’s a positive note that the festival can take in something like this among the more standard fare.

Date of live review: Saturday 26th Feb, ’11
Review by Julia Chamberlain

RIPITUP: Simon Pampena in The Probability Drive – The Maths Behind The Lucky Country
The Science Exchange – Auditorium, Thu Feb 24
Proud of being the National Numeracy Ambassador (congratulated by Julia Gillard, no less!), Simon led the audience through a brief overview of luck and how it affects us. The timely advice to AFL players on dating in the form of a flow chart was a good visual gag early on; next under the spotlight, the unfairness of the Olympic medals table (at least if you’re Australian). If indoor sports are more your thing, don’t worry, Simon has those covered too – in a somewhat confusing section, it was proved that snooker is a more skilful game than darts, although the alcoholic intake of the participants seems to have some impact as well. Finally the first 10 digits of pi come into play with memory techniques involving bees, hive doors and sticks.

To a crowd of maths enthusiasts, this show hit all the buttons, the fast pace bridging any gaps in the material.

Final Work: Lucky.
Kris Neilson & Jim Hilditch

The Barefoot Review: Simon Pampena in The Probability Drive – The Maths Behind the Lucky Country

This show was a pleasant diversion — a sort of entr’acte between other Fringe events you’re going to, a stocking filler if you get my drift!

Simon Pampena may or may not be a mathematician, but Prime Minister Julia Gillard has appointed him as a “numeracy ambassador” and has charged him with the responsibility of revving up interest in young minds about what is often perceived to be a dull pursuit.  Simon Pampena combines mathematics with stand up comedy and the result is pure joy that has found its way from school halls to the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the Adelaide Fringe.

The plot of Pampena’s show is that Aussies (Oi! Oi! Oi!) love to be lucky, love to gamble, love barracking for the underdog, and love to do it all in the pub!  With this as the spine to his show—which is more substantial than many other stand up routines!— he blinds us with questionable statistics and logic and “proves” to us why Australia (Oi! Oi! Oi!) is the most successful Olympic nation in the world apart from Jamaica, which has the fastest runners because the population is desperately running to escape being murdered!  (Perfectly logical—well, it was at the time.) He demonstrates a logical schema that will prevent St Kilda Football Club players from ever finding themselves in compromising situations ever again, and he nabs a poor unsuspecting soul from the audience and teaches them how to memorise the number “pi” to umpteen decimal places.  “Pi” was perhaps the least successful of his routines but his own recital of the first one hundred decimal places at break neck speed was reminiscent of the antics of the great Tom Leherer.  There was other stuff as well, and the whole event was entirely silly, but oh so much fun and a wonderful way to spend an hour.

Kym Clayton

The Adelaide ArtBeat

Disclaimer: I’m an engineer, who also holds a degree in theoretical physics. I’ve done a fair amount of maths at a tertiary level. I don’t think I’m this guy’s target audience…

Simon Pampena usually performs for school groups, and it shows. He comes off as trying too hard and a little patronising. The show had a few solid laughs and some “oh wow, that’s interesting” moments, but it was spoilt by Simon’s unnaturally excited presentation. Yes, I think he’s genuinely excited by maths, but I don’t think he’s THAT excited. He didn’t manage to form a proper rapport with the audience, so more often than not attempts to include the audience failed miserably. When it comes down to it, after 40 minutes I didn’t like Simon enough to make a fool of myself pumping my fist in the air and chanting “Maths! Maths! Maths!” despite the fact that I actually quite like maths. And God forbid you be the person picked from the audience to “let maths into your heart”. That particular display is why shows with any sort of audience participation element terrify me. Which is a pity since I’ve been to some really good audience-involved shows this year.

That paragraph above probably makes it sound really bad. It’s not. The show didn’t suck, it just missed the mark a little for me. The concept behind the show is sound. I’m all for bringing maths to a wider audience. The jokes were mostly funny. Some of the maths was suspect or just plain wrong (as pointed out by the group of Adelaide uni students in the back of the auditorium) but that’s not really the point, or at least not to the people I think Simon targets his show at. And I think that is where the problem lies. Aside from the odd adult joke, this show could easily be performed to year 9 students. That’s about how technical it is. Maybe it would also play well to the people out there that haven’t touched a calculator in years, I don’t know. (If you’re a person of limited maths knowledge that has seen this show, comment and tell us what you thought!) But when you advertise a maths based show, playing at the Science Exchange, chances are your audience are going to be mostly geeks like me. Simon Pampena hasn’t catered for that.

Perhaps at any other time of the year I would tell you to go along and see this show regardless. What else are you going to do with $15 and 45 minutes? But with Fringe providing more options than I have time and money for, I sort of wish I’d invested it elsewhere.

Guest Blogger – Jess Lyons

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