Dark Knuts (2009), Review

Chestnuts' latest slew of jokes, skits and fillers along with Bang Wenfu's musical arrangements felt sapped of their trademark vim and vinegar, as if succumbing to the exertions of searching for shows, or combination of shows, distinctive enough to caricature. The mash-ups between Quantum of Solace and Mamma Mia!; Twilight and The Dark Knightproduced some woefully bizarre material that strained to milk off-kilter permutations for cheap laughs and even cheaper potshots. The satirical cheeriness of Avenue P, Chestnuts' blockbuster skit and this year's namesake, registered as a laundry list of complaints set to forgettable tunes: about dumbing down, cultural recycling and the dearth of authentic theatre. The Chestnuts staple Pondan News Asia was passably risque, but commended little aside from cliched sexual innuendo. The fillers lapsed into a predictable pattern of amateur graphics and weak puns, prompting a smattering of hoots and applause, but mostly awkward silence. (Barry Manilow segments ought to rank as some of the laziest Chestnuts jokes ever conceived.) Sometimes, the actors were strangely inert and deeply ill at ease, perhaps aware of the restlessness gradually permeating the audience as one failed skit meandered aimlessly into another. That one stroke of comic ingenue or gut-busting laugh never came: this year, the joke was, cruelly enough, at Chestnuts' expense. Even more disturbingly, Dark Knuts attempted to leaven much of its torpor with unthinking sexual repartee, pilfering one bad sex joke or vulgarity after another to rouse the audience. Comedy always involves a certain degree of self-abasement, but at times, this year's Chestnuts experience felt degrading.