Dan Rath reviews a week of disastrous shows

SHOW REPORT #1 (Friday)

I go up holding a Red Bull, a glass of biodynamic grenache and a bottle of Perrier. I think this collection of incongruous beverages should get a laugh, but it is met with stony silence. As I take sips from all of them in quick succession I knock them over like a strike in a game of tenpin bowling. 

The first thing I am met with is not mirth but a shocked gasp. I frantically pick up the spilt drinks (which are all over the cords) and feebly suggest I don’t mind if they electrocute me, which is met with a sheepish groan. 

Afterwards the tech does not admit a show has occurred.

SHOW REPORT #2 (Saturday)

Even though Dan Fuck is in the second-row stimming and ribbiting like a frog, it has an offputting effect on the other punters who are wondering why there is a 50-year-old bloke on day release from the funny ​farm yelling my name while slapping himself in the face like a seal.

SHOW REPORT #3 (Sunday)

Luckily there is a guy who laughs like Arthur Fleck. His maniacal cackling, which has nothing to do with what I am saying and more speaks to his deep-seated unaddressed mental problems, nonetheless buoys the rest of the crowd.

SHOW REPORT #4 (Monday)

They have met before forming as a crowd to weaponise their indifference. Because the night before had kinetic energy in the crowd the shift back to nonchalance is unsettling. It fucks up my timing. 

The shift from a rollicking energetic crowd to Miss Marple’s Crumpet circle is jarring. It’s like picking up an empty suitcase thinking it's full or when you go down an escalator, but you don’t realize it's out of order and you almost trip.

SHOW REPORT #5 (Tuesday)

I never know whether to put the strongest 10 minutes at the front of a show because sometimes it feels like a waste. It almost feels like I should put my worst 10 at the front and warm them up with that, so that the best 10 can get a good showcase later-on.

Tonight, I feel like a piñata, and they’re beating my hopes and dreams out of me with sticks of indifference. 

They have no idea what they’re doing because they don’t know I have a comparative matrix in my head of how it’s gone before. Each muted response is being compared with a Rolodex of past best-case scenarios. This is manifesting in a psychic pain shooting down my spinal column. 

They can’t see it, but I will remember this disconnect for the rest of my life. Even in 20 years when I’m drinking a strawberry daiquiri, it’ll be tainted by a memory of this loss of rapport.

One thing I’ve noticed is sometimes someone will seem comatose or asleep or death-staring you. But 30 minutes in you say something that tickles them, and next thing they’re got their head in their hands smiling. It's like you’ve transitioned them. I have to remember this.

SHOW REPORT #6 (Wednesday) 

For this show I’d like to thank the traditional passholders of this festival. It’s actually hard to see because of the reflected light of all those lanyards. Drinking water, spilling Shiraz, belching strawberry-flavoured Red Bull and forgetting the next bit are all construed as intentional artistic choices as opposed to the ramblings of a mentally unwell 56-year-old. 

SHOW REPORT #7 (Thursday)

It’s so hard to adjust to a cold crowd after you’ve had a hot crowd the night before. Hot and Cold therapy does not work when it comes to crowds. (Only when it’s sauna and ice bath.)

After the show I hide behind the curtain and wait until I am kicked out by a security guard. A colleague is waiting in the wings. He says some ambivalent stuff that, due to years of marijuana use, is misconstrued as a betrayal. I go home and enter his name into an Excel spreadsheet.

• Dan Rath: Help Me Please is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) at 18:40.

Published: 15 Aug 2026