Casey Rocket

Casey Rocket’s first ten minutes are electric. Hurtling from one side of the stage to the other, moving his mic stand, moving his stool, moving his mic stand again. He only breaks his manic back-and-forth to sing brief excerpts from ‘Lips of an Angel’ by Hinder or perform his iconic Crab-man shuffle. It’s frantic. 

When it becomes clear that Rocket is going to attempt to sustain this level of energy throughout the show, problems arise. From this strong opening, the show plateaus. Each joke is a mere blip, all too easily forgotten when he moves on to the next utterly disconnected idea. Maybe if, individually, these were funny enough to function like abstracted one-liners, all would be forgiven – but they aren't.

Rocket’s determination to resist the tropes of standup has led to the creation of a show entirely without structure. There is no sense of building towards something, not so much as a crescendo of laughter. In place of call-backs, he has throw-away lines, repeated up to ten times with diminishing effect. Ultimately, Rocket pursues shock-value over humour, and once you adjust to the shock, there is little else to enjoy.