Review: The Dan Daw Show at HOME

Image credit: Hugo Glendinning

Reviewer: Daniel Shipman

Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Dan Daw Show is not your usual evening at the theatre. Dwelling on the parallels between theatre and sex, it emphatically places a disabled body front and centre in a way that is seldom seen, especially not as an object of desire and power.

Just like a successful kink experience, theatre relies on mutual respect, appreciation of boundaries, and even – to some extent – suspension of disbelief. Both acts have the capacity to be performative and sincere in equal measure, and both are about the consensual, requited exchange of power. Bodies and limits, domination and submission, power and physicality.

(It begins to sound like a twenty-first century Jane Austen novel, doesn’t it?)

Above all though, a kink encounter and a performance are about consent, and that concept is appropriately foregrounded here. Daw takes pains to confirm that he has consented to everything presented in the show, and that this is the foundation of all that takes place. His chemistry with Christopher Owen, stylised as KrisX, is a bedrock of the show. Their empathy and understanding towards each other is truly aspirational, enough to prompt questions amongst the audience around what lessons we can learn from the pair.

When Daw says that ‘you are in safe hands’ at the start of the show, you believe him entirely, and this is integral to the success of the show. There are various scenes tonight which have the potential to make those uninitiated to the kink scene uncomfortable, but under Daw’s capable supervision everything feels completely secure. You are given the genuine option to leave at any time, but no one feels the need to do this, far too compelled by the events unfolding before them.

It feels important to mention that the evening never once feels voyeuristic. This is a remarkable achievement for a show that includes kink, dominant and submissive behaviour, suffocating, choking, and restraints as trigger warnings. This is achieved by the mutual consent of audience and performer, and by Daw’s unwavering earnestness. He is a truly remarkable performer.

-Daniel Shipman

The Dan Daw Show runs at HOME until Saturday 3 December 2022.