Daniel Howell: Comedian ponders world doom in global tour coming to York

When comedian, YouTuber and author Daniel Howell brings his first solo comedy world tour to York later this year, his audience has been told to prepare for a night of “savage self-deprecation, soul-searching, Dan over-sharing his deepest fears and desires, and becoming part of a community of doomers to share the final days”.

The We’re All Doomed! tour will see Daniel embark on a run of global dates, with sarcasm and satire as he examines apocalyptic scenarios.

He says: “I wanted to make a show about the fact I think humanity is probably heading towards some sort of imminent destruction.

“Every day I’m genuinely quite terrified by what we see on the news, the way it looks like things are going and I really struggle with this idea that we’re all just expected to go about our days as if everything is totally fine when we know it’s not.

“Maybe, we’ll realise there’s actually some hope for the future, things are going to be alright and we’ll feel good.

“If not, then at least we’ll have had one good laugh before we go up in flames.”

He adds: “We’ve got the climate, capitalism, the bloody bees doing a colony collapse and the Alexas are definitely going to rebel and kill us.

“If we can’t laugh about these things, we might as well give up...but don’t worry I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Known for his self-deprecating and sarcastic humour, Daniel skewers everything that is wrong with the world as much as he does himself.

But whilst making jokes at his own expense, he has shared serious struggles with his sexuality and mental health, and is a proud ambassador for Stonewall and Young Minds.

The former BBC radio presenter has also recently released a new video titled “Why I Quit YouTube”, two years after he uploaded his coming-out video during Pride month. In the new video, he details his journey of becoming a YouTuber and the fame he’s received as an online celebrity.

On We’re All Doomed!, he says: “This is a very personal show. I’m going to talk about how I feel at the moment, how I’m dealing with my mental health, the weird life I have, fully immersed in all this social media stuff.

“Especially when you can joke about it, make yourself look a bit stupid, and say these things, a lot of people relate.

“People really appreciate you saying I feel like this too - I really hope by having a good laugh, a fun evening, audience interaction, people go that was a fun night out but also maybe I feel a bit relieved about some of the things I was afraid about.”

Daniel begins his tour in September in the UK, before heading to the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand and onto Europe.

“I actually think northerners generally have a better sense of humour. When you’re in London, people are a bit too self important, a bit too cynical, trying to be cool. Up North, you get people laughing and having a good time. Anything I can say as a Londoner who is miserable stuck here down south laughing at myself, they’ll go yeah that makes sense.”

“Mainly, I am trying to share my emotional burden,” he adds. “They say if you talk through your problems, you feel less bad about them.

“So I’m trying to get everything off my chest...I figure if whilst I’m here trying to give myself therapy, I accidentally entertain people a bit and they have a good night out, it’s a win, win.”

For tickets, visit danielhowell.com