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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Dark

Daniel Sloss

Netflix · 2018 · 60 min

A Scottish comic finds jokes in tragedy and terrible hygiene.

Daniel Sloss wants to talk about things that make people squirm, but his goal is not cheap shock value. The heart of the hour rests on the death of his seven-year-old sister, who had cerebral palsy, and his family’s use of humor to cope with the loss. By addressing personal tragedy on stage, he makes a case for comedy as a survival mechanism, challenging the idea that joke-writing about tragedy is inherently malicious. It is a show designed to test the audience’s boundaries, separating the people who want to laugh at painful realities from those who prefer to remain comfortable.

Filmed at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles, California, in February 2018, the show was released on Netflix as one half of a double-feature alongside his other special, Jigsaw. At twenty-seven, Sloss was already a veteran of the Edinburgh Fringe but relatively new to American television viewers, despite a string of appearances on Conan. Along with the heavy material about grief and religion, the set includes a painful anecdote about an ill-advised attempt to use mint mouthwash on his genitals, and a reading of an actual complaint letter from a previous tour. While some critics found his stage persona slightly pretentious, the hour successfully introduced his aggressive, high-concept style to a global streaming audience.

The set list

6 bits

  1. Sloss's sister who had cerebral palsy and passed away

    Explores how his family coped through laughter, arguing that humor can exist alongside sadness and that people getting offended by jokes about disability are engaging in virtue signaling.

  2. Being offended by comedy and religion

    Uses past audience complaints to deconstruct being offended, framing taking offense on behalf of others as virtue signaling and taking offense at jokes about oneself as narcissistic.

  3. Stupidity in America versus the United Kingdom

    Observes from an outside perspective that the U.S. has sectioned-off areas with backwards beliefs, whereas the UK has 'free range stupidity.'

  4. Pop stars being blamed as bad role models for children

    Mocks parental outrage over kids wanting to dress like pop stars by pointing out children don't have jobs to buy those clothes—joking that the only nine-year-olds with jobs are the ones manufacturing the clothes.

  5. A true story about a sexual encounter gone wrong

    Jokes about how comedians often fabricate endings with clever callbacks and puns, insists comedy comes from truth, and then delivers a punchline featuring both a callback and a pun.

  6. An unusual use for mouthwash

    Divulges an unexpected and personal practical use for mouthwash.

How it plays

Tone
Dark, irreverent, personal, sharp-witted, and profound.
On stage
Amiable, disarming, and playful while tackling taboo subjects; deliberately undercuts his authority rather than coming across as self-righteous.
Pace
Technically precise delivery marked by micro-hesitations, verbal hiccups, and calculated builds of room tension before releasing it.
About
death and grief, disability, the nature of offense and religion, cultural differences between the U.S. and the U.K., commercialism and pop culture

What the critics said

Critically acclaimed for balancing pitch-black subject matter and gut-punch emotional tragedy with sharp, disarming humor and narrative craftsmanship.

In the room: Kept laughing hysterically even as the show dipped into challenging, uncomfortable, and emotionally heavy territory.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: comedy.co.uk, netflix.com, en.wikipedia.org, chortle.co.uk, decider.com, pastemagazine.com, entertainment.thewindhameagle.com, ayoungertheatre.com, 800poundgorillamedia.com, rts.org.uk, danielsloss.com.

Backstory

Sloss draws heavily from personal grief, centering the hour around the death of his seven-year-old sister Josie, who had cerebral palsy. The special also marked the first standup release produced under Conan O'Brien's Team Coco banner for Netflix.

Details

Released
Taped
Belasco Theater, Los Angeles
Runtime
60 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Ryan Polito
Topics
After
Jigsaw (2018)

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