The dark comedy of Daniel Sloss
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YOU get the feeling that comedian Daniel Sloss has had enough of still being labelled “the young comedian”.
Maybe not surprisingly, as the Fifer is now 22 and has been working as a stand up for five years.
“I haven’t done jokes about my age for two or three years because I did talk about it a lot ... because I was young.
“But now it’s something that follows me around.
“And it sometimes gets annoying when people go ‘Do you think you’ll move on from the young material?’
“I don’t mention it any more!
“I think it’s maybe the fact I look young...”
He does.
But in the latest picture for his upcoming new show called, with brilliant simplicity, The Show, there’s a more mature, if not almost Victorian gentleman about the poster shot.
Daniel laughed: “I don’t look like that anyway because I’ve had my hair cut since then. The reason I love that image is because I have had the young thing following me around even though my material has changed a lot.
“My material has got a bit – I hate using the word dark – but it’s the only way to describe it.
“And I think that image is showing I’m 22 years old now and have an opinion!”
The picture, he revealed, was taken by fellow stand up and comedy writer Tom Stade’s wife.
Both stand ups now live in Edinburgh.
“I love Tom Stade, he lives down the road from me,” said Daniel, revealing they had been working together.
“He made me write material in a way I had never written material before.
“He made me fearless.”
He also helped Daniel move away from the “young” tag.
Daniel laughed: “The other two pictures originally chosen for my poster were very much taken from the youth angle.
“Tom saw them and said ‘If either of those pictures are used on the tour poster this year, you and I can no longer be friends!’.”
Daniel is enjoying the move to Edinburgh.
“I love it. I moved out from Fife last year and now I will probably never leave Edinburgh.
“The people are amazing it’s got the Edinburgh Festival every year, yes, the weather is f***ing atrocious, but I just adore it.”
But for those foreign trips, a tour of South East Asia with fellow Scottish comedian Craig Hill introduced Daniel to an entertaining new way of passing time at the airport.
“I’ve known Craig for years and he is so sassy and funny.
“He made the travellng part fun. Walking around Singapore Airport, he made me play a stupid game he made up where he said a sport and I had to walk as if I was playing it.
“We must have looked like such morons, jetlagged after this flight and walking like we were trying to play golf!”
This year Daniel was voted number one on the NME hot list of comedians.
So if comedy is the new rock n roll, is he the new Alt-J?
Daniel replied: “No! I think everyone mistakes that comedy is the new rock n roll.
“It’s not rock n roll on tour.
“On rock n roll tours, it’s drugs and booze.
“On my tour it’s me spending four hours a day in the car with my support act checking into Travelodges, trying to find somewhere to eat some food, doing a sound check, doing a gig with no possibility of us getting wasted afterwards!
“Where are we going to get wasted on a Tuesday night in Harrogate?”
A month ago, Daniel gave a blinding performance in a guest slot on the BBC Three Russell Howard show.
But it’s likely to be a rare TV showing, he revealed.
“I’d rather get on telly to do stand up like that. I enjoy the panel shows, but I’m not great on them,” he said modestly.
“I’m just not as funny as some other people – it’s not an area I particularly thrive in.
“On these shows I could be desperately trying to get in my own jokes, but then if people saw me doing that other sort of stuff and came to the actual show, they’d be disappointed.”
A promising pilot show he starred in called The Adventures Of Daniel, wasn’t picked up to go to series.
And if the right part came along, Daniel would like to try some more.
But at the moment, stand up is just fine.
“At the age of 17 my dream was to make a living out of stand up comedy and I’ve realised that.
“So I think to have any other dream would be selfish.
“I’ve got what I wanted and am happy with it. If it gets better, wonderful. But if it doesn’t, I can hardly complain.”
Daniel has already got next year’s show title sorted out, he revealed. Though maybe it isn’t the best advert for mature Daniel ...
He explained: “Next year’s show is called The Slossagefest.
“There’s a comedy band called Dead Cat Bounce who dared me to call it that next year.
“And I’ll take a dare...”
Daniel Sloss brings The Show to Eden Court on Saturday.
