Dulcé Sloan, a seven-year veteran of The Daily Show, feared that that pedigree would leave her with an audience of “three white people who listen to NPR” for her first appearance at Soho theatre. The US comic needn’t have worried: the room is full and she opens with local material for the London crowd. Why do we add an “s” to “math”? Why are Black people living here – “you knew it was cold”? Nothing in the capital scares her, she says, because we don’t have guns: “Give me your wallet!”
Sloan’s CV spans acting and improvising, too, and that shines through as she masterfully shapes the energy in the room. She avoids The Daily Show’s topical comedy, instead sharing vignettes from her life as a 40-something Atlanta-raised artist who has recently bought a house in LA for herself and her family. We’re treated to impressions of her “insane” mother and brother arguing, a “goofy” ex-colleague, and men trying to propose to her in Spanish. Punchlines are punctuated with sidelong looks, confident pauses left for the crowd to keep laughing after each joke lands.
