London solo show and podcast interview

I will be doing a solo show in London on November 12th, and the details can be found here. I'm really psyched about getting back to the UK after a fantastic week with Stanhope, and I hope some of the people who saw me open up for Doug will come back to see me do a full 80 minute set.

I also did a long podcast interview in Edinburgh during the Fringe festival, and you can download or stream it at this location.

Abortion, torture and the flood in Pakistan

I've posted two new clips on Youtube. The first one was filmed at the Stand in Glasgow (great club!), and the second was filmed during my hour long show at the Fringe, in front of twelve quite apathetic bastards.

My week with Stanhope

I had such a great fucking time in London last week, getting to support my favourite comic bar none, Doug Stanhope. Leicester Square Theatre is a wonderful place run by great people, and I enjoyed myself immensely. The owner Martin looks like someone straight out of a Scorsese mafia movie, being a perfect gentleman with the presence of somebody who could probably fuck you up bad in ten seconds. Lovely. Also, the fact that Doug himself is the nicest person in the world doesn't hurt. I blacked out at his hotel every evening, and we had a respectable seventeen hour bender one of the first nights. I was fucking wasted by ten o' clock in the morning when I joined him for his shoot for "Newswipe," and I have zero recollection of even doing a show that night, but it went well. Allegedly. Thanks for the drinks, the books and the many drunken laughs, Doug, you rule!

PS! Doug took a heavy amount of sleeping pills with his evening cocktails one night, to the point where I thought I might wake up with a literal corpse the following morning. And it made me realize, even though I would rather die myself than do somebody else's material... if Doug was indeed dead, I might have had a quick peek at his notes before I called an ambulance. That's how damn good he is.

Here is a short clip, filmed during the last night. The picture quality is horrible, but the sound is ok.

Reviews

The Fringe is nearing its end, and I'm fucking tired. I've had an awesome, awesome time, but I'm really looking forward to a few days relaxation at home now. And feeling slightly depressed and worn out, being slaughtered in a review by Chortle doesn't help. That's the second bad review I've gotten, and the second to refer to my act as "nonchalant." It's too bad I come across that way, as it really doens't match up with my self-image, but then again that's probably the case with everybody. The reviews from Hairline, the List and the Scotsman were all excellent though, and the fact that people either love or hate what I do is not news to me. Still, being slagged off towards the end of the festival feels fairly crappy.

I have four more gigs to go, as well as shorter spots at different clubs. Really looking forward to the gigs with Stanhope in London now. I need it.

My first Edinburgh review!

Kate Copstick from the Scotsman was at my show earlier this week, and she wrote a really nice review. For some reason, and despite several email requests, the Scotsman haven't put the review online. I almost missed it. Kate was however cool enough to mail it to me, and here it is (personally I think it reads more like a four star review, but I might be biased):

COMEDY
Dag Sørås
3 stars 
The Stand(12)

From the land that gave us trolls, Ibsen and A-ha comes Dag Sørås, recommended by no less than Doug Stanhope himself. And that is good enough for me.
  This is not so much a show as an hour-long club set, but it is peppered with enough good stuff to hold an audience, even at midnight. Sørås is the master of the comedic similie, and deliciously appalling imagery. Religious zealots, people talking bullshit, and Tony Blair as peace envoy all give Sørås fuel for his bonfire of idiocies. His explanation of the true effect of the end of slavery is quite brilliant, and his argument about Obama ending the occupation but leaving 50,000 troops there should be on every anti-war activist's lips. It is also laugh-out loud funny and utterly, appallingly accurate.
  His closing riff on how feeling uncomfortable is the essence of feeling alive uses another of his fabulously wrong similies. And then there was a bit about fingering a dead deer... Sørås's dark, but Doug's dead right. 
Kate Copstick
Until 29 August
P51

Edinburgh!

So I've been over here at the Fringe for almost a week now, and I'm having a great fucking time! All the people who work at the Stand are really friendly, and seem like genuine comedy fans. The room I'm doing (Stand 4) is very small, which is just as well, as I'm having a bit of a hard time drawing a crowd. Yesterday got cancelled because only two people bought tickets, and I knew one of them. Sunday was almost sold out though, so being here is very much like being a manic depressive. But cancelling yesterday meant I had the chance to see Nick Sun do his show over at Stand 2, and I laughed my ass off! Nick only had two people in the crowd when we got there, which made me feel even worse for cancelling. I won't do that again, unless no one shows up.

I'm also doing a bunch of shorter sets around town, and most of them have been really good. You need that boost of adrenaline that comes from performing in front of a bigger crowd, and it brings back some of the confidence that an audience in the single digits just staring at you might suck out of you.

There have been a couple of reviewers at the shows, but I haven't seen anything in print yet. My friend Magnus Betnèr got a good review in The List, and I want to thank him for plugging my show. Tonight I'm doing "Political Animals" at Stand 1 right after I'm done with my show, and its being hosted by Andy Zaltzman, who is a great comic. I'm looking forward to catching his show as well at some point. Now, time for a breakfast pint.

New interview

I did an interview with Jay Richardson during the Brighton Fringe festival in May, and it was turned into this article. I also talked to the Guardian last week, and I'll post that result once it's published.

Fringe flyer

Video

I don't have that many videos in English up on my Youtube channel, but this was filmed during my very first gig in England, at the Bearcat in London in November 2009.

New blog

Seeing as I will be performing at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, as well in London more often, I've decided to start this English blog. I'll be writing here when I feel like it, as well as posting tour dates and occasional videos.