You could write theses on comedy’s relationship with social maladjustment. Many a standup, we imagine, was once an awkward kid making people laugh to fit in – and not all of them grow out of that awkwardness. Dan Rath is a comic as uneasy in his skin as the most afflicted of classroom misfits, barely meeting our gaze as he rattles off one one-liner after another. Happily, those one-liners zing as zingily as any in town, disruptive little thoughts that flagellate Rath himself and flip the world upside down – or at least reveal it anew through the downturned eyes of a man excluded from its pleasures, and liberated from its pieties too.
You could compile an entire joke-of-the-fringe list from Tropical Depression alone – although no reputable outlet could publish it without a trigger warning. Rath’s is a bleak worldview, forged in rejection, medication and alienation from the humbug of modern life. Zero per cent alcohol? Ghosting? ADHD? Our host has a skewed take on them all, and he’ll leave it planted in your head. Then there’s the running commentary his performance provides on its own, in-the-moment failure: Rath is like an anti-comedian in his fidgety refusal to allow momentum to build.
