It’s the Royal Variety Performance – or at least, a pre-show rehearsal in the dingy room downstairs. Jazz Emu is prepping for the night of his life, a chance to perform for the King and vie for a knighthood. The prospects are good: Jazz’s services to electro-funk parody cannot be gainsaid. But he has rivals for the honour, and accusations mounting that may deny him the regal recognition he craves.
That’s the premise for Knight Fever, the new show from Archie Henderson’s much-loved alter ego, a slinky synth-pop purveyor in shades with a beanpole frame, delusions of grandeur, and one of those foghorny, self-serious voices that plunge you right back to the new-romantic 1980s. Its predecessor, You Shouldn’t Have, established Jazz Emu as one of the hottest new acts around. Knight Fever is a consolidation, a consistently amusing hour that rearranges rather than develops the elements that first propelled the character up the comedy charts.
It finds Jazz rehearsing with his backing quartet, the Cosmique Perfectión, with whom (he flatters himself in the opening number) he is scrupulous in sharing the stage. “My utter lack of ego is godlike!” But will that be enough to pip arch-rival Kelly Clarkson (“that demonic succubus from hell”) to His Majesty’s endorsement? Between the songs, the tale unfolds of Jazz’s scheming for favour, but it’s a twisty one that veers far off-piste to take in standalone skits (on stage, on screen and often goofily funny) about Netflix algorithms and bucket-list demands like 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
The songs are pretty standalone, too, only occasionally integrated with the knighthood conceit. One is about his bromance with bezzy mate, Eggerson Keaveney (an on-screen cameo by Sam Campbell); another is a hymn to the mysteries of the DVD logo. The musical pastiche is always impressive, and if the songs themselves can be oblique, comedically speaking, Henderson’s commitment to the conceit, as he parps out another full-throttle melodica solo, is a joke in itself. Jazz’s pursuit of Sir status is low stakes at best, but the show is great fun(k), equal parts daft party and deft musical comedy.
