Daniel Sloss: My Generation

With a BBC 3 sitcom pilot slated for broadcast this autumn, Daniel Sloss’s third year in Edinburgh is a watermark, his final festival before he turns 20 and perhaps the last moment he can legitimately tell quite so many jokes about being a teenager. That someone so young is producing and performing material so accomplished remains impressive, but you sense that the Fifer understands it’s almost time to put away childish things.

Unsurprisingly, he gets good value out of his unique selling point while he can. His signature routine, in which his father’s sex and shaving advice become horribly confused, is assuredly told, its formulaic aspects just about justified by the gross-out factor he increasingly builds in. It's endearingly honest when he confesses he can’t tell many sex jokes yet, his experience in the field being somewhat limited, though masturbation gags, like masturbation, are a less edifying substitute. His account of a police visit, when it was suspected that the young Sloss may have been groomed by a paedophile is a real, fleeting insight into standup's most over-evoked bogeymen. And while it’s compelling rather than hilarious, he uses it to fluidly segue into an exasperated reflection on the schoolboy seduced by a middle-aged woman 191 times, his affinity in age heightening his incredulity and the laughs. The wiles of his mischievous younger brothers round out the hour nicely and cast Sloss in a self-deprecating light that should stand him in good stead if his career continues its upward trajectory.