Daniel Sloss Profile
"Who here thinks they're a good person?," asks Daniel Sloss at the start of So? - revealing his "struggle" as a white middle-class dude.
The Scot, already a veteran comic at the age of 26, has styled himself as comedy's enfant terrible. His niche is subversively - and perversely - politically incorrect and, yep, dark AF stand-up; snowflakes beware, this is no safe space. Sloss scatterguns triggers, but underneath it all lies a millennial pessimism. This comedian is leading a resistance - but to what?
Sloss has previously joked about his sister Josie's cerebral palsy and death in childhood. His family used black humour as therapy. Curiously, Sloss now incorporates an apologia into his show - relating feedback from patrons he's offended (ironically, predominantly Catholics outraged by his atheist irreverence). It's hyper-meta, but despite this disclaimer, the comedy provocateur remains as mercurially insensitive and outrageous as ever.
Standing him apart from the average internet troll, Sloss is clever, studious and even philosophical. Though identifying as a liberal, he astutely exposes the left's self-undermining hypocrisy. Sloss actually shares some legitimately fascinating research into the word "pussy". Still, targeting vegans seems peculiarly obvious and ironically safe.
Nonetheless, in So?, Sloss' main beef is with (romantic) love and those both culturally and emotionally validating relationships - all of which necessitate "compromise" (he is brutal about his ex-girlfriend). At the end, Sloss proudly boasts how, since August, So? has precipitated 58 break-ups, thereby "saving" nearly 120 lives. Yet, sanguinely, while So? is long at 70 minutes, unlike the 'ships that made Sloss feel "dead inside", it never drags.
Daniel Sloss presents So? till 21 Apr at Taxi Riverside, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
