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Review: Dom Joly brings his Conspiracy tour to Cambridge Arts Theatre




Dom Joly, the comedian, travel writer and columnist who is still probably best known for his hit television series, Trigger Happy TV, brought his Conspiracy Tour to the Cambridge Arts Theatre on Sunday, 24 March.

The show is based on his latest book, The Conspiracy Tourist, and explores theories such as is the Earth flat, does Finland exist, are UFOs piloted by lizards, and does Denver Airport really have a maze of tunnels running underneath it?

Dom Joly. Picture: Spencer McPherson
Dom Joly. Picture: Spencer McPherson

Having been a fan of Trigger Happy TV back in the day, I can’t say that I’ve really followed Joly’s career much since then, but I know he’s written a number of books and travelled extensively (he revealed during the show that he’s visited an impressive 180 countries).

The first half involved the prankster and “investigative journalist” looking at how since around 2015, conspiracy theories have stopped being just a few fun “crazy ideas” and have begun to be taken much more seriously - and became more widely shared - thanks to the internet.

He showed a diagram highlighting the different ‘levels’ of conspiracy theories and there were quite a few I hadn’t heard of - such as Finland not existing (it’s just sea which the Swedish and the Japanese have monopolised for fishing, apparently) and Denver airport being a massive panic room for the Illuminati.

He showed photographs of his trips to Roswell and the island of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, which the Flat Earth Society believes to be one corner of a square, level world. I also never knew that ‘flat earthers’ refer to those who believe the Earth is a globe as ‘globetards’.

Interesting and entertaining, rather than laugh-out-loud funny, the first half was certainly eye-opening.

The second half introduced Dr Julian Northcote, a conspiracy theorist who first came to public attention as the author of the book Cows, Britain's Secret Killers, in which he exposed the hitherto unknown number of civilians killed by cows every year. Why was there no outcry over this? Julian suspects Big Farmer.

A video featuring Dr Northcote was shown which had some very funny moments. He then came out and went through some of his beliefs and theories. I found this part of the show more amusing than the first half.

Dom came back out towards the end and closed the show with some concluding remarks.

[Read more: Cluedo 2: Comedy and murder mystery combine for ‘riotous evening’]

A pleasant way to spend a Sunday evening, though not especially memorable, this two-hour show has four dates left to run on its UK tour. For more information, visit domjoly.tv.



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