Written and performed by: Loz Dodd
As soon as Loz Dodd enters the room, scantily clad in his red PE kit, his presence is one of deep awkwardness, vulnerability and a faint sadness. There’s an uncertain crease to his brow as he stutters through his opening remarks to the crowd. He is distracted by someone taking photos, by the fact that his sister is in the crowd slurping her drink. This beginning section sprawls out, begging the question when the show is actually going to start. But it really doesn’t matter, because from the very beginning he has the crowd (literally at points) in the palm of his hand and it’s a display of nuanced character comedy at its glorious best.
Clambering over chairs and shaking hands of every audience member is a great way to get them on your side. But you need to keep them on your side, and Loz manages this with consummate ease, with a set (if you can call it that) that fleshes out such an endearing, magnetic character it feels almost like we might all find ourselves in his cult by the end of the evening. Almost everything he says and does – a lot of which involves impeccable off-the-cuff improv buffonnery – is laugh-out-loud funny. There’s a mic set up on the stage, but he lingers stage right near the door, as if he might make a hasty exit at any point. Before the show starts proper he wants to give us his back story, which he warns us is “a bit sad”.
We never quite get to the bottom of what has made his brow so permanently furrowed. There are visceral glimpses into his existential void, but he’s constantly waylaid by a fascination with the collection of strangers before him. He wants to connect, he wants to sing, he wants to reach out. He creates songs to backing tracks of nineties RnB. He warbles profound epithets like “I want to build worlds with you” and “who wants to be part of my family?” It’s all a perfectly pitched performance of someone with a yearning to express and commune but with a complete lack of self-awareness about how ridiculous he is coming across.
It’s the kind of show you can tell will be completely different every time you see it, partly because of its reliance on crowdwork and the weird earnest grace with which Loz conducts these exchanges. It goes far beyond “what’s your name? What do you do?”, into “imagine you’re back in your youth in a forest, an old woman approaches you, what does she say?”
As the mic remains unused on the stage, Loz takes us deeper into his quest for connection. Against a backdrop of new-agey meditation sounds, we’re invited to close our eyes and yes, it feels like a joke, but it also feels like actual emotional connection with this accidental spiritual leader and the other equally surprised people in the room.
Reviewed on 14 November 2025. Festival Runs to 16th November.
