Live Comedy
Mark Watson: Before It Overtakes Us
In 2023, Mark Watson was in the Daily Telegraph's '50 Funniest Comedians Of The 21st Century'. Not long afterwards, he feared for his life when a flight in Australia developed engine failure. The pilot got it down safely, and we'll never know who would have got a promotion from number 51. But it was another reminder of the frailty of life for the Taskmaster runner-up, author and accidental YouTube phenomenon - if such a reminder was needed. In twenty years of being reviewed as a stand-up, Watson's never been far away from words like 'neurotic' (along, luckily, with some more positive adjectives) and now is embarking on his next UK-wide tour.
Over a life, though, anxiety changes shape in strange ways. The threats Watson was warned about at school (putting a plastic bag on your head, making friends with that strange man at the gate) might have receded, but the 21st century is full of hazards the teachers didn't say much about. In 2023, Mark spoke to a customer-service representative called Phoebe for almost half an hour before realising that 'she' was a chatbot. It sent him down a rabbit-hole exploring ChatGPT and its strange quasi-human brothers and sisters. People mock or dismiss this new technology pretty easily, but it's developing at a staggering speed. Already, you can ask a robot to 'write stand-up in the style of Mark Watson' and get a pretty good approximation.
Does the remarkable progress of tech in our age present us with an opportunity to transcend our human fragility, becoming something better than the feeble beings who quake when a plane needs to make an emergency landing, who struggle even to communicate effectively over the purchase of batteries in Tesco or the need to sneeze, who can't arrange to deliver a package to a building at the same time someone is in the building (all these are touched upon in the show)? If we're clever enough to have built machines that can out-think us, might we be able to use them to teach us, and improve our prospects in the universe? Or are they overtaking us, day by day... and if so, is there anything a comedian can do to help us cling to our humanity? Even if he's the fiftieth funniest one out there?
2025 dates
17 September - Cambridge Junction J1, Cambridge.
18 September - Maidenhead Norden, Maidenhead.
20 September - The Attic, Southampton.
26 September - Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek
1 & 2 October - Royal Spa Centre, Leamington Spa
3 October - The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
4 October - The Stand, Newcastle
5 October - The Stand, Glasgow.
9 October - Old Fire Station, Oxford.
11 October - The Astor, Deal.
12 October - The Stables, Milton Keynes.
16 October - Home, Manchester.
24 & 25 October - Norwich Playhouse, Norwich.
30 October - Theatre Royal, Winchester.
2 November - Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury
5 November - Cheese & Grain, Frome.
6 November - Quarry Theatre, Bedford.
9 November - Komedia, Brighton.
13 November - BEAM, Hertford.
14 November - Banbury the Mill Arts, Banbury.
16 November - Colchester Arts, Colchester.
22 November - Blackheath Halls, Blackheath.
27 November - Stroud Sub Rooms, Stroud.
28 November - Monmouth Savoy Theatre, Monmouth.
7 December - Leadmill, Sheffield.