Daniel Sloss: Dark

EICC until August 30 (not 17, 25)

Four stars

Thank God some people find Daniel Sloss offensive. In fact a 2014 routine about thanking doctors rather than God provoked the admonishing letter from a Christian member of the audience that now provides the launchpad for the Fife-raised atheist’s latest show: picking the letter apart line by line is a clever way for Sloss to make clear his own viewpoint while challenging his current audience to decide where theirs is likely to lie over the following hour. Sloss is on red-hot form this year. He opens up a subject (if men had periods, his sister’s cerebral palsy) and not only do the jokes pour out, he slyly and unexpectedly introduces serious ideas into the debate (the price of tampons, the joy that cuts through the shadow of disability). A stand-up veteran at 24, his handling of provocative topics is maturing fast so that, even as circumstances pile up in his sex stories and the laugher rises to hysteria, he’s totally in control of the shifts in tone.

Alan Morrison