One Man Dark Knight: A Batman Parody

Chicken For Supper Productions—John Hirsch Theatre at the MTC Mainstage

Charles Ross applies his frenetic energy and vast trove of pop culture references to the Christoper Nolan Batman Trilogy. It helps considerably to be familiar with all three of the movies, as otherwise you may not know why certain things he does are hilarious. My own hazy recollection of the first movie made me miss a couple of the jokes there, but his parody performances of the Ken Watanabee and Liam Neeson roles still were amazing.

After taking a short break to talk to the audience he moved into the second movie. His mannerisms and voice for Heath Ledger’s Joker were bang on. All the sharp little pop-culture references he throws out may not be caught by everyone, but the audience laughter will show you who did.

For the final movie, once again Ross nails the characters of Harvey Dent and Bane. The philosophical musings of his Bane were the highlight of the show for me.

My only negative was sometimes the Batman lines were hard to make out, a natural hazard of that low and hushed style of speaking, but it doesn’t happen that often.

Murray Hunter