1. He gave one of his best knockabout performances in a long time.

2. After years of knockabout abuse in this paper, lets give two muted cheers for Whitbread and their hops.

3. The clowns gave a knockabout performance.

4. It was at times a knockabout existence.

5. Her latest, Girls Are Best, is a knockabout look at the overlooked achievements of women down the ages.

6. He is unable to separate his contribution to what should be a well-informed debate from a satellite television knockabout.

7. The film dramatises and elaborates these fears in a knockabout, comic-book style with slightly implausible plot complications.

8. As the object of Ben Stiller's affection, she's the comic glue that keeps the Farrelly Brothers' knockabout farce tethered to the ground.