5/5 stars

Daniel Sloss is a phenomenon. After leaving secondary school he reportedly asked his parents for a gap year to try his hand at comedy. It paid off well and by nineteen he was the first stand-up comic to perform on the Paul O’Grady show and even managed to net an appearance on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. With a CV more impressive than most senior comics under his belt I was curious to see what his live show would be like, and I was pleasantly surprised to realise I wasn’t just witnessing the antics of one star in the making, but two.

The show started with Sloss announcing through the PA that Geordie support act Kai Humphries would be emerging to warm us up and ‘check that we weren’t dickheads’, where the onslaught began. Kai’s brand of working-class humour was incredibly funny, heart-warming and insightful, often challenging social perceptions but also ironically revelling in them. He was so funny that by the interval I did feel a little like I’d already seen the main act. But I was wrong.

Sloss complimented Kai perfectly with his laugh-a-minute humour. He refused to be bound to routine, often going on bizarre tangents and reeling them all in with hilarious punch lines. He even admitted that he’d named the show ‘The Show’ to circumvent any critical expectations that he’d be thematic and formatted. The humour was both refreshing and obvious (in the best possible way) successfully stripping the affected veil of adolescence. For the encore Kai re-emerged and the pair became the ultimate comedy duo. Perhaps my housemate said it best when she said “I wish I’d brought some Soothers, my throat hurts from all the laughing!”

Tim Hakki