Some standup comedians you can take an instant dislike to, sorry Ricky, while others just click with you right away, laugh at first sight. Daniel Sloss is in the latter category.
A 20-year old from Fife in Scotland, I’d heard he was doing the Out to Lunch festival in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter so I checked him out on youtube.
Sloss uses his youth to good comic effect without coming over as one of those precocious child stars who are overly self-conscious about any talent they have, but Sloss’s winning charm carries him through. Oh and he has one big advantage over a lot of other standup comedians – he’s actually funny.
Today’s / yesterday’s lunchtime show at the Black Box was a hugely enjoyable affair. The baby sister of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Out to Lunch is a depression-busting, snow-melting, pavement-gritting, heart-warming antidote to the financial and climatic hardship out there.
For £5.50 you get a show and a lunch during your break – and its worth spending the extra time to get into the city centre if you work outside it – for a programme full of cultural delights.
Daniel Sloss’s star is definitely in the ascendent. Appearances on Michael McIntyre’s Roadshow, the Rob Brydon Show and 8 out of 10 cats on Channel 4 not to mention his own pilot show for BBC3, The Adventures of Daniel ensured a good crowd for his Black Box gig, eager for jokes about teenage angst – girlfriends, shaving and lots of onanism (I’m using that word because I’d be embarrassed writing the word masturbation – doh!).
It’ll be interesting to see how Daniel’s show develops as he slips into boring old adulthood , but for now, he is showing huge promise.