Review by Steve Bennett

The transition from ‘viral success’ to ‘viable success’ is not necessarily an easy one. There are, for example, precious few piano-playing cats or sneezing pandas with their own Edinburgh Fringe shows.

But Dan and Dan, whose Daily Mail Song has an enviable 1.64million views, have a particular hurdle to overcome in transferring to the live arena. And’s that’s because – spoiler alert – there is only one Dan.

Online, he he cunningly clones himself into his YouTube videos. Onstage, he achieves this by performing alongside a projector screen in what could be a recipe for technical disaster, yet he pulls it off with great skill and remarkable timing. Plus, this unique set-up allows for plenty of in-jokes, which he ingeniously exploits with some inventive jiggery-pokery.

It’s not all gimmickry, though, as there’s a well-established double-act dynamic at the heart of Dan and Dan. The Dan on stage is relatively quiet and introspective, the archetypal solo young man working away on introspective songs in his bedroom; while the on screen Dan is more playful, and just wants to entertain the people. It is truly a Cannon and Ball for the digital generation... though I suspect there might be a truth that Dan is not yet entirely comfortable in front of a live audience, which is why that version is more introvert.

Their songs are based around low-key melodious guitar music, and are quietly witty, though the fun really comes from what surrounds them. It’s the resourceful video of Requiem For A Wardrobe that gets the laughs, while clothing is again deployed in the name of comedy as Free Range Egg is performed in silly stage outfit. The Daily Mail song, with its litany of buzzword headlines from the comedy circuit’s most disliked newspaper presented like Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, is given its rightful place, too, and it’s list of the paper’s scaremongering obsessions is certainly well-observed.

But on the strength of The First Sign Of Madness – and it is a strong debut – it may not be the music that smooths this one-man double act’s path to success, but the creativity of the (split) personality behind it.

Review date: 10 Aug 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett