Catriona Knox Thinks She’s Hard Enough

Catriona Knox puts a lot into her shows. Before we’ve even had a chance take our coats off and drop anchor, she’s bouncing around the room, waving, high-fiving and bellowing introductions over the top of Catatonia’s ‘Mulder and Scully’ turned up to 11. Then the inevitable pause. The music stops, a quick costume change, and the exhilaration never quite returns.

Knox has a compact deck of characters to shuffle, and she starts with a bum deal. Griselle Munchen, which, if you listen really closely, sounds a bit like the name of a world famous supermodel, is a prim, wartime “austerity cook” and with a little help from the front row, is whipping up a “make do and mend pie”. But guess what? She’s going to put really unsavoury things into it! Like offal! And tobacco! And human hair! Yuck or what?

It’s a tissue-thin ruse for Knox to make a few gags about modern day culinary habits but they, like the character, quickly feel over-baked. A whiny American social psychologist fares little better with her TED Talk about Brilliant Life Outcomes for Ever, or BLO-Es (pronounced “blowies” – you can see where this one’s going…).

In fact, it’s only when she channels Nick Clegg—with meticulously observed gestures, Overly. Emphasised. Phrasing, plus a smattering of misappropriated Spoonerisms—that she really hits her stride. “Do you want a hard-boiled or a soft-boiled Britain?” she/he intones… “And are we doing enough to support our soldiers?".

A little more comedy in this vein, and we’d all vote for that.