{"id":316311,"date":"2025-08-04T04:57:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T04:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/316311\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T04:57:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T04:57:14","slug":"defiling-gravity-camden-fringe-2025-libra-theatre-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/316311\/","title":{"rendered":"Defiling Gravity \u2013 Camden Fringe 2025, Libra Theatre Cafe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Writer and Director: \u00a0Dan Leith<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Defiling Gravity features likeable Irish comedian and musician Dan Leith delivering an engaging hour of adult stand-up and original songs. Set on an aeroplane that is perilously close to crashing, the show is loosely centred around misadventures in the performer\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>The best of a decent haul of jokes comes early on in an anecdote about Leith\u2019s great-grandad, a cabinet maker who helped fit out the Titanic. Only the fortuitous illness of a family member kept the man from travelling on the ship\u2019s maiden voyage. \u201cIt\u2019s not funny,\u201d Leith tells us with deadpan earnestness, \u201cbut it\u2019s one hell of an icebreaker\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever luck great-grandad had seems to have passed Leith by as he takes us on an amiable meander through, variously, a nasty smash on his girlfriend\u2019s motorcycle (\u201cdumb, but a cool way to almost die\u201d), a bad heart attack in Iceland (\u201cthe shop, not the country\u201d), and a reckless shortcut on a windswept walk that left him nearly unable to move. Aside from being a helpful vehicle for gags and songs, Leith\u2019s tale of woe has a self-motivational purpose: a reminder that, however risky he finds it to do stand-up, what happens off stage can be worse. The tone is confessional and warm without ever feeling mawkish.<\/p>\n<p>Leith plays a mean mini-guitar, and an occasional backing track adds variety to a half dozen well-crafted comic songs. \u00a0A highlight is a catchy tune called Karen, written, Leith tells us, \u201cjust because nobody ever wrote a song about anyone called Karen.\u201d She is a \u201cHitler with a peach moustache,\u201d we learn, which is probably why the audience ends up singing along in a rousing chorus of \u201cFuck you, Karen\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Anticipate audience interaction throughout. A hilarious song about puddings leads into an extended riff on the perils of anal sex during a bout of IBS, one of a series of scatological references that probably make Defiling Gravity adults only\u2014two weeks at Edinburgh Fringe beckon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reviewed on 3 August 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Camden Fringe runs until 24 August 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer and Director: \u00a0Dan Leith Defiling Gravity features likeable Irish comedian and musician Dan Leith delivering an engaging&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,115142,115143,115144,393,4884,257,6080,115145,2764,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-316311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-camden-fringe-2025","10":"tag-dan-leith","11":"tag-defiling-gravity","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-review","16":"tag-the-libra-theatre-cafe","17":"tag-theatre","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114968726315927476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}