Catriona Knox: Packed Lunch

A word of warning for those thinking of giving Catriona Knox’s new show a go: avoid the front row, if the idea of getting involved in live performance doesn’t appeal. You won’t so much be picked on as thrust wholeheartedly into her comedy universe, and it gets messy.

Actually just the thought of sitting through an hour of character comedy would chill the bones of many a festival-goer, but Knox may be the girl to sink those preconceptions. One third of all-female sketch troupe The Boom Jennies, she inhabits her various creations like a squatter in an Islington townhouse: determinedly, sometimes angrily. The interaction begins as you enter the room, and in truth the decision to avoid row one may well be taken out of your hands as your hostess—already deeply embedded in character—maneuvers her chosen audience members into participation-friendly positions.

Thankfully for the inhibited, when Knox does choose an accomplice she hardly lets them get a word in edgeways, and is soon onto a new scene and a new stooge. Beautifully acted, Packed Lunch is pitched midway between a sketch show and a RADA audition DVD, as Knox takes her creations through several circles of hell. It's often excruciatingly impressive. 

That old Fame adage about paying for your craft in sweat certainly applies here as by the show’s end she’s dripping with it and various other lotions and potions, having also scattered confetti, spilt salt and spat pork scratchings all over the stage. Poor Matt Forde, on afterwards, must look at the mess and wonder.