UK Theatre Network

I could tell you tales that would bend your bones. 

Dom Joly came to note as the star of the hidden camera show Trigger Happy TV and continued to make off-beat television like World Shut Your Mouth and Dom Joly’s Happy Hour. Now he is touring his new one-man show planning 70 performances at venues all over Britain.

In this retrospective of Joly’s work – it was originally planned as a huge show on ice - Dom reminisces about the ups and downs of his career. He takes us through the perils of travelling the world drinking, holidaying in North Korea, becoming a paparazzo, scaring an Eskimo in Newfoundland, trying to fly across the Grand Canyon whilst strapped to an eight foot rocket, turning into Captain Haddock (of Tin Tin fame), discovering that he was at school with Osama Bin Laden and being stoned by Gillian McKeith while imprisoned in the Australian jungle. The show is spiced up with various clips of Joly’s TV shows commented by Joly. We encounter Hanif Kureishi, Terry Gilliam and Robert Smith (The Cure) who were among the celebrities targeted due to Dom’s allergic reaction to Cool Britannia and Blair’s celeb mania. Joly also expresses his absolute loathing for Radiohead who produced “seven albums of unintelligible shit to show how cool we are” and Mandelson, “minister of the dark arts.”

The second half of the show commences with a Q & A session which means that Dom makes fun of almost everybody who dared to write down their questions in his “Facebook”(a book with his face on the cover) during the interval. The session is followed by some severe audience participation – shy people are not advised to sit in the front stalls.

Dom Joly’s approach is not terribly original but the show is very funny and entertaining all the same which is also due to the clips in the first half and the skills of the audience in the second half. The Richmond audience was especially cooperative and ingenious!

Dom’s next stop will be Epsom on 3 May 2011.

For further tour dates please click on the following link:

http://www.allgigs.co.uk/search/tourdates/67325/Dom_Joly-1.html