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Promotional art for We're All Doomed!
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We're All Doomed!

Daniel Howell

YouTube · 2024 · 2 h 10 min

A theatrical, cynical comedy show about the end of the world.

Watch it free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Daniel Howell spent years as half of a wholesome, hyper-popular YouTube duo before building a solo act out of existential dread. He tries to balance the cheerful demands of internet fame with the reality of global collapse. The show opens with an ironically upbeat musical number before descending into a catalog of modern anxieties, targeting capitalism, the climate crisis, and his own struggles with depression.

Filmed at the Alexandra Palace Theatre in London, the performance concludes a 78-date world tour that marked Howell’s first solo outing. The theatrical production relies heavily on audience participation, featuring a game of conspiracy-theory madlibs and a segment where the crowd helps judge which public figures belong in hell. It also employs high-concept stagecraft, including a lighting sequence designed to mimic a panic attack.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Opening musical number singing 'Everything is fine'

    Performs an unnaturally cheerful song complete with rainbow visuals, which is continually interrupted and dismantled by his inner voice confronting him with clinical depression and real-world horrors

  2. Conspiracy theory madlibs with the crowd

    Involves the audience in evaluating conspiracy theories and building absurd collective scenarios, including Phil Lester sacrificing a giraffe in Primark

  3. Rules for the apocalypse and jury trials for controversial figures

    Appears with a folding chair to present survival rules and assumes the role of a judge, asking the audience to vote on whether figures like Elon Musk, Jared Leto, JK Rowling, and Peppa Pig should be cast into the flames

  4. Reflecting on school bullying, coming out, and old videos

    Sits on stage steps recalling childhood bullying for being gay, screens his 2013 video 'Existential Crisis' to urge embracing the void, and sits amidst fallen stage rubble and orange cubes

How it plays

Tone
Dark, satirical, existential, and emotionally raw
On stage
Sarcastic, self-deprecating, and candidly neurotic, oscillating between theatrical denial and vulnerable honesty
Pace
Dynamic and theatrical, shifting between high-energy musical/variety sequences, rapid panic-attack lighting beats, and slow, solemn confessional storytelling
About
depression and mental health, climate crisis and ecological collapse, capitalism and social media, apocalypse and existential dread, homophobia and bullying, bravery and finding hope in doom

What the critics said

Commended for its raw and uncompromising discussion of clinical depression and audience engagement, though noted by some reviewers as featuring canned millennial tropes, pacing dips, and performative political platitudes

In the room: Deeply receptive and emotionally invested fanbase that enthusiastically engaged both during the live theater show and across interactive livestream chats

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: standupd.com, letterboxd.com, movielogr.com, buzzmag.co.uk, dailycampus.com, imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, tubefilter.com.

Backstory

Conceived and written during a period of severe depression and existential dread in 2021 into 2022 following his YouTube hiatus, framed around societal collapse, the climate crisis, and mental health struggles

Details

Released
Taped
Alexandra Palace Theatre, London
Runtime
2 h 10 min
Where
YouTube
Director
Edward Stambollouian
Topics

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