[2012095] Chris Knight’s Odd Fusion Wolf Beard Give Them Snacks
Chris Knight @ The Crown and Anchor Hotel
6:00pm, Wed 7 Mar 2012
“Snacks!” opens the bearded Chris Knight. “Do you like snacks?” the smallish audience is queried. The results are inconclusive; “Beards! Do you like beards?”
Less than two minutes in, and we’ve successfully covered about half of the content promised by the title.
Knight is a bit of a surrealist – maybe not as hardcore on the lunatic fringe as Sam Simmons, but he feels much more approachable – which is kinda handy, given the small room out the back of the Cranka. And Knight’s gentle nature allows him to meander with his jokes, often taking the audience on a long journey to a soft punchline – the “don’t bring a gun to a bomb fight” joke stands out here – but it’s the odd turns that are taken on that journey that make it worthwhile.
Knight also throws in a bit of satire (“Fringe reviews reviewed”) and occasionally makes deep cuts seem ridiculously easy (the clown that keeps killing people), with his pop culture hooks (specifically his movie references) always appearing to be orthogonal to audience expectations… and that’s a good thing.
Having seen Chris Knight a few times previously at Adelaide comedy gigs, I pretty much knew what to expect – indeed, a lot of his material was familiar from those spots. Having said that, the McCafe exponential coffee bit never gets old – the theatrical nature of his presentation is an absolute joy to behold. And, whilst his fascination with water in the middle of his set seemed… well, odd, it seemed in keeping with the rest of his show: gigglingly good soft-surrealism, wonderfully presented by a genuinely likeable guy. All that, and a cute little bearded biscuit at the end of the show, too.