This Humble Quest offers up a madcap, frenetic late night quiz show, hosted by Mark Allen and diminutive, slightly eerie sidekick Eli Silverman, as a duo of guests take part in a not-so-grandiose Olympiad to crown one of the two the Universal Genius. With opening night guests Sarah Pascoe and googly-eyed We Are Klang member Marek Larwood alternating between competitive sparring and surreal whimsy, the show adds up to a ramshackle race through increasingly daft challenges that leaves the midnight crowd giddy with delight.
Allen proves an engaging host, playing a bemused straight man to the largely improvised delights from his guests. The quiz is broken into competitive topics, including literature, mathematics, and most bewilderingly, a hunting segment involving Silverman, a series of animal costumes, and stealthily manoeuvred Nerf guns across the audience. It’s this kind of manic invention, combined with the obvious chemistry between the four onstage figures who all go for it with gusto, that turns the quiz format into an impressively physical spectacle. Larwood’s brilliant attempt at an improvised stand-up set on the Olympics was a silly, poised, half-arsed triumph which set the tone for a lot of the show. Watching the camaraderie between the quizmasters and guests and their skill at balancing their material with the demands of a raucous crowd convinces that, though this show may not promise displays of universal genius, it certainly delivers a lot of fun along the way.