gay

the show is a social experiment. it asks, what should the relationship be between artists and their fans?

should creators be strictly authentic to themselves and just make what they are inspired to make, or should they do what the followers that support them want? should tv show writers listen to the fandoms? should bands not change their sound for the next album in case people don’t like it? when people grow and change with time and want to do new things, how does that change the relationship with their audience that love them for one specific creation or point in time? is there a middle ground? does this question need to have a definitive answer?

for ‘dan and phil’ the answer right now is - we don’t care about all those questions, we just want to give the people what they want.

if this show was the last thing we ever did, what would we want to? for us, honestly, just make our audience happy. there’s plenty of time in the future to do whatever we want, but right now we had an opportunity to do something much bigger than for just us two individuals, but for all of you to celebrate the thing that is ‘dan and phil’, the people that like it and our memories together.

it’s not as simple as that though. who are ‘the people’? what do you want from us? do you all want the same things? why do you want them? who are dan and phil anyway? why do people like them?

what’s actually important at the end of the day? on top of all this, we’re two socially awkward nerds that struggle to leave the house to shop for food embarking on a world tour, how ironic.

this is the show: ‘interactive introverts’. for two emotional hours of improv/sketch/stand-up comedy with an ace production - the audience is control, but what will they do? what you see in the film is just the response from one of our audiences in l.a, but it was completely different as we performed it around the world.

the question at the end is, what do you think? we’re just a case study. apply these questions and what happens in our show to your favourite writers/musicians/illustrators and what happens? there may not be a definite answer to any of it, but for dan and phil - this is what we chose to do, for you.

so hopefully you feel like we have pleased you and we have given you what you want.

i actually took a break from therapy for the entire summer, but i did manage to cope as being on tour in a pretty good environment for me purely from a neurosis perspective! as i was constantly surrounded by people and didn’t have a moment’s rest, it gave me no time to get in my head with all those pesky feelings you know? it’s definitely easy to get through life by staying busy like this, but at the same time it’s hard to do any introspection or personal growth when you don’t have time and space by yourself? so it’s a good thing and a bad thing. just a quick answer - i’d like to share more thoughts and experiences on therapy and my mental health journey in the future!

(this is all of course acknowledging that therapy is a privilege that many people can’t access due to lack of funds/cultural understanding/under-supported mental health services in national healthcare etc so i appreciate what i can get)