Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Adam Knox fears that he doesn’t have a great deal to say as another white, straight, male youngish comedian who’s never had any particularly interesting jobs beyond the call centre.

But actually he’s a sharp, funny writer, which is far more important. He may play up the dumb guy shtick, but his jokes suggest someone brighter than that, with the sort of off-kilter intelligence that can form a decent punchline. 

Knox – who is also part of the silly, pun-loving Chimp Cop show – projects a jaunty persona in his solo show, too,  with an engaging glint in his eye. He's got a largely self-deprecating style, considering himself overweight or a coward, for example, which he sometimes projects into a more general observation about men in general. But he has plenty of contempt left for other people, too, meeting a Jai and a Susan and imagining their entire pitiful lives.

There are no themes or structure - he shows us his set list and says we can jumble it up if want (we don’t). A couple of the subjects are so heavy on the act-outs they are just one other performer away from being sketches – such as the rookie detective struggling to join in with his colleagues’ gallows humour, or his deliberately chunky characters.

But generally this is an engaging,  easy-going one-way conversation, which he rides on a near-constant wave of rolling laughter.

Knox is, indeed, good and funny… The only issue really is that running for 35 of his advertised 50 minutes, it barely feels like an extended set, let alone a show. And for someone who’s been doing comedy for more than seven years, that seems like a shortfall – even if padding it out with sub-par routines would be worse. At least the audience are left wanting to hear more.

Review date: 18 Apr 2018
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival