Daniel Bye: Imaginary Friends (touring) ★★★★

Before the show starts (or is it really the start), as Daniel Bye chats to the audience – giving out potential trigger warnings, amusingly giving a predicted swear count for the show and testing audience response, a feeling of uncertainty descends on Stephen Joseph Theatre’s studio space. 

It’s in that unsettling territory that Bye weaves his increasingly dark narrative. With a caveat that not everything he will tell is literally true, but rather some of it is emotionally accurate, the borders, of what is real within the show and what is not, are going to be decidedly permeable.

Imaginary Friends posits Bye as the host of one of those late night TV comedy news show. The death of his brother Sam triggers our protagonist to begin to disregard his moral compass. From writing material at his sibling’s deathbed, to manipulating and ‘rework’ that tragic situation “to enhance the truth” of it, the story slyly explores how one act of conveniently dispensing your integrity will lead easily to a greater willingness to engage in the darker side of human nature. 

Cheered on by imaginary companions such as Piers Morgan, Jeremy Clarkson and Joe Rogan, he finds himself engaging addictively on ever-growing acts designed to provoke outrage.