Catriona Knox: Player

102793 original

It's impossible to fault character comedian Catriona Knox's ability to get the audience involved in her vignettes. She cajoles her 'volunteers' with dexterity and patience, even when the latter wears thin with a gentleman whose phone rings on two separate occasions. Conversely, another man gets a near ovation for his role as Knox's permanent stooge. He endures the experience, involving downing shots of whisky, with a smile on his face – and that wasn't just the booze talking.

The audience interactions almost upstage Knox's creations, who number a French teacher surrounded by Ofsted inspectors, a landlady who is about to be booted out of her pub for her questionable hygiene, a delusional woman with a fictional family and a blow-up doll languishing in a sex shop. Among the chaos of these desperate characters Knox, under the direction of Penny Dreadful Thom Tuck, doles out smart lines that give some of her creations a decent backstory and motivation. Without the audience participation, however, some of the sketches would want for impact.

This, then, is a curious, and welcome, example of a character showcase that is not produced solely with an eye for TV. Knox, who is a member of Radio 4-approved sketch outfit The Boom Jennies, and who boasts TV credits including Not Going Out, has honed her craft over consecutive years and seems to have found steady form. She gets by with a little help from her punters, but can sometimes exists in splendid isolation too.