Soho Theatre Live: Joel Dommett

Joel Dommett builds an hour of stand-up around the humiliation of being catfished, blackmailed, and exposed in a tabloid sex scandal. Most public figures would pay to keep a recorded Skype-sex tape quiet; Dommett turned the experience into the spine of a theater show. Filmed at London’s Soho Theatre, the performance catches the comedian at a major career pivot, having just finished as runner-up on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and transitioning from cult panel-show guest to mainstream television presenter.

The performance relies on Dommett’s signature high-energy, self-deprecating persona. He literally holds a breadstick on stage, a nod to a childhood habit of pretending to smoke, while weaving together embarrassing anecdotes. He bounces from stories about his teenage nu-metal band, Psirus, to a failed one-night stand involving a carpet, to a musical bit about a “laser dick”. Rather than coming across as bitter about his brush with internet extortion, Dommett leans into his own gullibility. Critics generally appreciated how neatly the narrative callbacks snap together, even if some of the sillier set pieces feel more like playground antics than sophisticated joke-writing.