“A quirky comedy coupled with informed information – a lovely combination.”
“Weird lives matter,” the pre-announcement blasts as Dom Joly kicks off the show, and fits of laughter was heard throughout the hall. Immediately the attention of the audience is hooked, and rounds of applause can be heard as he walks into the spotlight with the biggest grin. The show begins.
Dom Joly, the amazing English comedian and writer best known for the multi-award-winning prankster TV series Trigger Happy Show, has once again struck genius with his new stage performance – Dom Joly – The Conspiracy Tour. By travelling around the globe to investigate weird and outlandish conspiracy theories, he is now ready to provide us with the truly juicy details and satiate our curiosities. Did the moon landing actually happen? Is the earth actually flat? These are the questions that he might just have the answers to.
This show is divided into two halves, both with different performances and agendas. Starting off Dom gives the audience an easy-to-follow crash course on the definition of a conspiracy theory, and displaying a chart that correlates a list of conspiracy theories with their detachment from reality. He then immediately jumps into his “research” into different conspiracies, detailing his time in Finland and the United States of America. Dom is a captivating storyteller, as he manages to draw the audience in easily. I was notably taken by his experience in Denver International Airport, as he takes the audience through the origins and the resulting consequences behind this specific conspiracy. He manages to provide an extremely satirical yet informative view, and I felt like I was learning despite the constant chuckling – truly an amazing combination.
The second half of the show takes a more awkward turn, as the well-known writer and lecturer “Dr. Julian Northcote” takes the stage. Dr. Northcote is an eccentric conservative who is hellbent on spreading what he knows to the world through his written books, such as Cows: Britain’s Secret Killers. An obscure form of fiction, it has seemingly been shadow banned as “they don’t want you to know the truth!”, or so he says. Dr. Northcote is portrayed as an endearing character that is yet extremely hard to sympathise with; like a nice man who is misunderstood, until he starts mentioning his belief that UFOs had kidnapped his wife. Perhaps, this is the point that Dom is trying to make – people who believe in conspiracy theories can still act as normal people, nonetheless.
As Dr. Northcote is finally ushered off by the staff, Dom then enters the stage as himself and completes the show by answering questions from the audience. Here, the façade of a comedian fades away slightly, as he pours his heart out on how he feels about the general shift of conspiracy theories from being mere jokes to being an alternative truth. He highlights how political propaganda and the rise of social media has propelled and accelerated this shift, and how easily one can be affected by these aspects. It was thought-provoking, and I came out of the show with a much better understanding of how conspiracy theorists function.
I believe it is safe to say that this was definitely worth the time spent, and I am truly excited to see what the rest of the tour has in store for Dom Joly and his team.
I saw him tonight. Anyone who is a critical thinker he perceives as a nut job and there is no alternative person after the break just him pretending to be a conspiracy theorist who he petrays as a nut job. He mocks people who question the mainstream narrative and does not think for themselves. Shocking.