Teenage comedian Daniel Sloss gets his own BBC Three pilot where, as is the theme in new comedy, he mixes the subjects of his stand-up into a life story sitcom with occasional cutaway sketches. The awfully named Adventures of Daniel is presented like Seinfeld targeted at adolescents minus the clever writing. The Adventures of Daniel aired on August 24.
The Adventures of Daniel BBC Pilot
Much of the opening stand-up routine has been seen on television before by viewers of the Paul O’Grady Show, maybe it could have been better to lead with entirely new material but it went down very well there so the Scot is probably playing to his strengths.
That being said these sections are definitely funniest parts of The Adventures of Daniel, he has a similar rhythm and “voice” to Ed Byrne, who incidentally pops up in one of the sketches, and that’s always a good thing. His self-deprecating approach is really the only type of act that works with younger stand-ups such as himself because people won’t feel too annoyed by someone half their age showing a lot of confidence and competence on stage.
Quite why this wasn’t the focus of the entire show instead of framing the sitcom stuff makes no sense, unless Sloss doesn’t have enough material to carry a series. Either way it’s like TV execs don’t have faith in one person standing in front of a room of people and talking, unless there’s some Z-lister to randomly cut to. There’s nothing grand about one bloke see and TV is a visual medium where there must be something happening in the shots at all times. Or so they say.
Daniel Sloss TV Show
On the sitcom side of things there's not really much of a plot to move things along other than a hackneyed thing about the protagonist trying to impress his girlfriend’s dad who, as it must be written in these teen shows, doesn’t like poor Daniel. But the conclusion – Sloss gets his hand stuck in a condom machine and embarrassment ensues – has been repeated to depressing lengths and seemed tailored just to please the imagined BBC Three viewer.
There were some good moments; such as losing his rag during a game of charades and analysing his own jokes to leave the clean ones only to discover they are all about sex. There is potential for something good here but not if the urge is to rely on Two Pints of Lager level of crudeness (i.e. not a funny type of filth). Still, at least the sketch bits have relevance to the story and show that the "see what sticks" approach on Family Guy hasn't ruined this concept forever.
Daniel Sloss Stand-up Comedian
Perhaps the reason many critics mention Sloss’s age (19, soon to be 20 on September 11 but don't hold that against him) early on is to somehow cover the blow for saying he’s not all that great. Yet. His time will come though, especially with an upcoming appearance on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow. At the moment he has good ideas on the page that haven’t transferred well to the screen despite his obvious ability.
On the whole The Adventures of Daniel isn’t not too bad and given the overall quality of the typical BBC Three output this will very likely be picked up for a full series next year, if anything to boast the procurement of a young comic talent. Until then this show needs to work out exactly what it is. Is it a sitcom? A sketch show? A sit-sketch-up-com? It’s all a bit confusing and comes across as thrown together rather than carefully written. Now there’s irony.
Steven Cookson - Steven Cookson is a writer and attempted journalist based in Howden. Originally from Chester, that Hollyoaks place in North-West of ...
