Comedy review: Daniel Sloss, Pleasance, Edinburgh

By BRIAN DONALDSON
Published on 28/11/2012 00:30

For those who still view him as a precocious comedy boychild, Daniel Sloss has suddenly become a strong man of stand-up. Sure, he’s lost the Bieber haircut, moved out of his parents’ home and is swigging ale from the stage, wholly against his agent’s advice.

DANIEL SLOSS

PLEASANCE, EDINBURGH

Star rating: * * * *

But now the England-born, Edinburgh-based, Fifer-Viking has added weight and heft to his material.

He might remain overly attached to his manhood (which he has blessed with a special nickname) but his concerns and themes are now bigger and bolder. Sloss rips apart homophobia with an incisive analysis on why being gay is simply better, slates the daft notion that there can be acceptable forms of racism and confesses to his own drugs history. But the “happy, bouncy Daniel” will always find a way of cramming some smut into proceedings, whether it’s about tennis players or daytime TV personalities he craves or recalling his unfortunate visit to an STD clinic.

Given that he feels no one should really pay too much heed to his views, plenty onlookers will freely dismiss some rants: vegans, Francophiles and parents might take serious issue with a large swathe of his gags about animal testing, Disneyland Paris and having favourites among your offspring. But what is never in doubt is a sharp mind behind the writing and a potent stage persona which forces through his routines, even in the very rare moments when the quality control threatens to falter. Scotland is not short of top-class comics these days and Daniel Sloss is not far off being the nation’s heavyweight champion.