‘You're Not In This Alone’: David Cross Delivers ‘Solace’ With New Special

The new stand-up special from US comedian and actor David Cross puts the pandemic into perspective. The Mr. Show and Arrested Development legend describes I’m From The Future, a show he started touring before COVID stepped in with other plans, as ‘cathartic’, allowing him to release pent up energy from ongoing lockdowns that saw him away from the stage for a year and a half.

“I wouldn't have guessed that it would've affected me so much, but it really did,” Cross admits, “[Stand-up] was the thing that I missed more than anything.”

Just hours before jumping on Zoom to dissect his upcoming special, premiering this weekend, news breaks that Cross and longtime collaborator Bob Odenkirk have a new show in the works, Guru Nation, a creative endeavour that “was one of maybe three things that brought [him] any pleasure” since the pandemic began.

With the Paramount+ series only just announced, Cross is still unable to say much about it, but does reveal that “it's going to be a limited series, most likely eight episodes”.

“Beginning, middle, and an end. It's not going to be sketches,” he adds. “We're going to play multiple characters, but it's a full story and it's about kind of seeing through the eyes of these two cult leaders... there’s actually going to be a bunch of different cult leaders, but it focuses on two: one very kind of Eastern-ish and one Svengali-type piece of shit.

“It starts off where we're not really rivals, but then we become rivals, and then all these cults descend on this tiny town somewhere, wherever we place it in the states, and just the town is overrun by all these different cults trying to buy up the land. It should be a lot of fun and we're really looking forward to it. We've already got so many great crazy ideas. And it's Bob and his brother Bill and I, and Bill was a writer and producer on Mr. Show as well."

While he has been able to be creative through the development of Guru Nation and other recent projects like acclaimed HBO Max series Station Eleven, “there's no approximation of [stand-up]”, which is why Cross is very excited to share I’m From The Future with fans via a live-stream and accompanying Q&A, kicking off at 12pm AEDT this Sunday, February 13.

You can feel the energy in the room when watching I’m From The Future, filmed at The Bell House in Brooklyn last November.

“Every show I did leading up to the taping of that, I mean, you would sense the kind of catharsis and release, as it were,” Cross recalls. “That happened every time. And the special came about because I had to cancel a tour.

“I was supposed to be on tour and because of COVID, I had to cancel it and then I just scrambled to put the thing together, knowing that a lot of this material I'm not going to do a year-and-a-half from now when I finally get to go back out on the road.

“I mean, I would imagine I wouldn't do the COVID stuff and the stuff about my dog - all that stuff would just be kind of stale at that point.”

One of the more intimate moments of the new show centres around the passing of Cross’ dog, Ollie Red Sox, who was put down last year.

“I cut stuff out of that bit too that I just thought was a little extraneous,” he reveals, “but when I was doing it, I was only a matter of weeks removed from having done it, and I just used it as therapy. The dog passes and then people leave and you've got this dead dog… the next 15 minutes were really strange and surreal, but yeah, it was hard.”

Outside of the material around Ollie Red Sox, most of I’m From The Future is based on COVID, tackling people who are anti-vax, anti-mask and more. Given the venue he filmed his special at required vaccination for entry, he knew he was probably with like-minded people and so he didn't hold back.

“I want to give [like-minded people] comfort and solace, like, ‘Hey, you're not in this alone.’ And for those other people, I hope it does irritate them. Absolutely. I mean, that’s a nice byproduct. I don't intentionally set out to do that, but yeah, sure, if that bothers people, great.”

As for those watching it at home, Cross just simply hopes that it delivers “thoughtful laughs” and “an hour of levity out of the horror of some of our day-to-day lives”.

“And that's all. It's not a message,” he enthuses. “I'm not hoping to teach anybody anything. If you're predisposed to like my stand-up, I think you'll like this special.”

Hopefully, we’ll be able to see finally Cross live in Australia in the not-too-distant future too; personal circumstances to date, mainly surrounding the amount of time needed to do an extensive tour, just haven’t allowed him to visit for shows.

“I've never been there and I've been dying to go forever,” he says. “I've gotten several flattering, generous offers and I've heard nothing but great things about doing stand-up in Australia, particularly Melbourne. Everybody raves about the festival there and so I will get there. I absolutely will get there.

“When I go out on the road in the States, I go everywhere - that's really important to me, especially when you're doing shows early on and people are like, ‘I drove 14 hours from Montana.’ You're like, ‘Oh, wow. Shit. That sucks. All right. I'll do a show in Montana.’ So, I did a lot of that and I would definitely do that in Australia. That's part of the fun for me.”

David Cross: I’m From The Future will premiere as a live-stream this Sunday, February 13 at 12pm AEDT, followed by a live Q&A. Tickets for both events are available now via Cross' official website.