Daniel Sloss is famous for becoming a successful comedian in his teens, and is still going strong after playing shows in Europe, America and even making four appearances on Conan. After a critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe, Sloss brings his latest show Dark on tour.
With the use of crude and often uncomfortably offensive humour, the show couldn’t be more appropriately named. “The show is called Dark not Clever” Sloss explains. In an industry with competition from shock comedians such as Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr, Sloss takes his place in the world of stand up comedy as one of the few blue comedians who make it as a mainstream entertainer.
As explained at the start of the evening, if you have come to see the show because he “seems like a nice boy on the telly” you are going to hate every single minute of the performance. The playground jokes which formed the majority of his material throughout his early career has since matured into an outrageous presentation of stories and gags which make you question your morals for laughing.
A complaint letter written by an audience member from his previous tour acts as the basis of his material for the first segment of the show. He then proceeds to present a cut-throat rebuttal explaining the foolishness of being offended by jokes on religion, which made certain faces in the audience who may of been of faith cringe with embarrassment. Many of the topics discussed in the show are risqué and not for everyone’s taste. There is no taboo which is left untouched, from disability and death to having sex after cooking.
On a perhaps ill-thought-out evening, a family with teenage children were sat on the front row. Throughout the show, I was distracted by the father’s look of horror and disapproving gazes at his children who were laughing and nodding along with all the sexual references. This didn’t go unnoticed by Sloss who broke out of his act in the middle of an anecdote to say “can I just quickly apologise to this family at the front? That is going to be an awkward car ride home”. This was the only improvised moment of audience interaction during the show, and was professionally put to an end as soon as it got uncomfortable. Many shock comedians would have extended the joke for as long as possible to humiliate the family and create tension, but the dark comedian was very aware of the lines which were not to be crossed.
Sloss was supported by up-and-coming comedian Tom Houghton who warmed the audience up with his camp humour. He treated the audience to a number of songs including ‘how close can you get your face to someone else’s before it gets creepy’ which included audience participation…not one for sitting on the front row if you’re shy.
Overall, the show was nothing short of hilarious. The audience had a brilliant time laughing hysterically, even when the tone dropped to darker jokes.
Daniel Sloss – Dark is touring Europe until 5 December. For more information and tickets, see Daniel Sloss’ website.