From the moment Cam Knight bounded on to the stage at the Brisbane Powerhouse (2 March), he exuded the energy of a man riddled with narcotics, and as his stories unfolded you really did have to wonder.
Though the attendance numbers were relatively low, his ability to work a room is a true gift. Rather than steer audience members towards pre-canned answers he took what he got and used his alchemy to get the crowd going.
Looking like a pre-trauma Andrew Lincoln from 'The Walking Dead', his physical segues coloured his captivating storytelling and gave him a natural charm that warmed the audience to him from the offset.
Theming the show around his struggles to embrace fatherhood and the new perspectives it gives him, he never shies from drawing from intensely personal subject matters.
At times his drug stories venture into humble brag territory and his bit on happiness in our own appearance feels a little flat coming from a man who clearly puts effort into his physique.
However, even these moments fit in with the explorations of low self-esteem and how they affect his life and bizarrely make you warm to him further. It makes it clear that the self-exploration he’s going through on stage is authentic and evidently cathartic.
He shook each member of the audience’s hand as they arrived in the venue. We’re all on in this together. The fact that he manages to make all of this into a hilarious, engaging 60-minute show becomes an even greater achievement.
The show ends with a segment which doesn’t quite fit thematically with the rest of the show, but reframes Cam in a situation more reminiscent of his care-free days, snowboarding in Iran.
His gift for narrative can turn even the driest material into something that gets the room into hysterics, and his concluding orange physical metaphor is a euphoric moment that ties it all together and breaks the fourth wall in the most satisfying of ways.
As Plato said and Cam quoted a number of times: “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation”.
Cam Knight's 'Almost Bulletproof' plays at the Brisbane Powerhouse until 6 March.
