Caution To The Wind

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Describing his hour as “niche storytelling”, Chris Boyd hopes to convey his enthusiasm for storm chasing. A tornado obsessive whose girlfriend has left him, there's instant appeal in trying to ascertain how much of what we're told is real and how much is exaggerated character. Still, it's a line that I'm not sure even Boyd is fully aware of. Disdainful of conventional standup, he nevertheless offers up several routines with the suggestion that this is “what comedians do”, framing his geek interest in an unconvincing blend of personal anecdote, props and manipulated footage, exulting in his best tornado metaphors like a triumphant arena comic. Self-aware enough to appreciate that living in a country largely untroubled by extreme weather, he must look to America, he shares his alleged diary of a trip to the US dustbowl that's marked by its complete absence of incident.

Padding out his hour with a litany of trivia, little is compelling enough to retain attention. A routine about tornadoes in films inspires a fond reminisce of what Boyd inherited from his late father, and you sense here, in more reluctant testimony about his relationships tangential to the storms, he might have contrived a more memorable show. Because while his blinkered, tunnel vision is a big part of the joke, it soon wears thin. A white whale-style fixation on his nemesis, the maligned fire tornado, approaches a climax of sorts in a decidedly clunky ending, featuring the comic Stuart Laws awkwardly capering around in a cape and mask.