Towards the end of this enthralling monologue by Marcelo Dos Santos, the unnamed character played by Samuel Barnett goes for cognitive behavioural therapy. A questionnaire asks him to grade, out of 10, his fears that something terrible will happen. He plumps for 10 then scrawls a smily face alongside it.
He’s a professional comedian after all – or as he puts it, “professional neurotic”. Barnett’s shirt has its own Comedy Store-esque laughing logo on the back, with red lips, heart-shaped tongue and bright white teeth. And Dos Santos’s play dives into the compulsion to make others laugh, from using humour as a defence mechanism to exerting control on your surroundings.
