Dan Rath - Help Me Please

Dan Rath brings his show Help Me Please to the Newcastle Comedy Club on Friday 24 July. It's a solo stand-up set, so it's just him on stage for the night.

If you haven't come across him before, Rath is a comedian who makes a career out of the things most people try to hide. He frames his act around failure, talking about it as something he's so used to that success has become an existential threat. He calls the show the failure laboratory, and that gives you a good sense of where he's coming from: he's not pretending to have it all figured out, and the comedy comes from leaning into the mess rather than polishing it over.

There's also a bit of a strange history to him that might ring a bell if you follow the odd news story. Back in 2018, he made headlines for dressing up as a sewing needle and hiding inside a strawberry. It's the kind of absurd image that sticks with you, and it fits right in with the way he approaches his work — taking a weird, specific idea and running with it. That same spirit carries through into the show, where the focus stays on the awkward, the unsuccessful, and the slightly off-kilter side of things.

It's a single-act bill, so the whole evening is built around his set. You'll find the Newcastle Comedy Club at 1 Darby Street, Newcastle, 2300, with the show running on Friday 24 July.